


Nights in Florence

by Blizzaurus (Pisara)



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Missing Scene, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:46:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pisara/pseuds/Blizzaurus
Summary: Five times Sergio and Raquel were interrupted, and one time they weren't.
Relationships: Raquel Murillo/Professor | Sergio Marquina
Comments: 203
Kudos: 668





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a shameless excuse to fill in the blanks of Sergio and Raquel's time in the monastery and beyond (and add more sex). It will be updated every day segment by segment. This is pretty smutty so if you are not into that sort of stuff, you are free to click away now. The rest of you still here, enjoy!
> 
> Spoilers for season 4.

_1._

  
There was a reason Sergio had chosen his quarters to be located as far from the rooms of his team as possible, but even that distance wasn't able to spare him or Raquel from the godless racket downstairs.

"What is that noise?" Raquel whimpered. She shielded herself by pressing her face into the crook of Sergio's shoulder. "Did some animal get in? Or is it the others?"

"I hope it was an animal. Animals we can _shoot_."

Sergio closed his eyes, hoping that the voices would die down by the time he opened them again.

No such luck. The voices only grew louder, and it started to dawn on him that he would be forced to retreat from the comfort of his bed to go find out the cause of the commotion.

"Don't be long, _cariño_ ," she murmured and let her hand brush against his as he grudgingly propped himself up from the bed. He nodded absent-mindedly, despite Raquel probably not being able to see the gesture in the dark, and fumbled for his glasses. He then rose and began his wearisome descent downstairs.

The process of shepherding his team back to their beds took less than five minutes but worsened his mood tenfold. He was fond of the illusion that the people he had under his helm were mature adults, and wake-up calls like this had an awful tendency to shatter it.

He returned back to his room and saw Raquel still awake. He had hoped that she had fallen asleep again, but he would not say no to someone sharing in his suffering that was wakefulness at this hour.

"What was it?" She asked as he lifted the covers so he could crawl next to her.

"They were screaming something about patriarchy. Palermo was grabbing his crotch."

"Hmm. So the usual."

"Pretty much," Sergio murmured, taking her back into his arms. He buried his face into her soft hair and took a deep, content breath. Times like this, spending only a few minutes away from the warmth of her body at night was torture. The whole journey to Italy they had been forced to sleep apart from each other in bunk beds, and he could still recall how much he'd hated it.

The one night they had tried to spend together they'd ended up near traumatizing Helsinki who'd had the bunk underneath Sergio. But here tonight, they had all the privacy in the world.

Raquel let out a content hum and soon he could feel her lips graze his neck. He felt pleasurable shivers travel through his body.

"We have an early morning tomorrow. I ordered everyone else to go to bed, we should do so too," he whispered but made no effort to move or stop her. They'd had sex earlier and he was still feeling weary from it, but only a fool would refuse Raquel Murillo's kisses.

Her lips dipped lower. "I have to confess that the thought of you giving orders is a _huge_ turn on for me." 

"I seem to recall you having confessed that to me many, many times."

The next time he caught her lips with his own instead of letting them fall on his skin. He grabbed the back of her head and brought her closer to deepen the kiss, his other hand moving to clutch at the hem of her pajama shirt. 

Feeling the familiar material underneath his fingers, he broke off the kiss, leaving Raquel to chase the jut of his throat with her lips.

"Are you wearing my shirt?" he asked, confused.

He could feel her smiling against his skin.

"Maybe."

The simple word made blood rush down to his groin. It was that easy for her to rouse him again, and he would have suspected it to be some sort of sorcery if he did not know for certain that the power she held over him did not deserve to be called something as banal as magic. It was something far more potent.

His fingers began playing with the hem of her shirt almost of their own accord.

"You know, it is almost as if you want me to oversleep tomorrow and embarrass myself in front of my students," he rasped out, stealing a feel of the bare, smooth skin of her stomach underneath the fabric.

Raquel answered by grabbing his hand and helping it slide beneath her shirt. Soon, he had her perfect breast cupped in the palm of his hand. He felt the stiffened peak of her nipple between his fingers. 

" _Maybe_."

At once, he was rock hard.

Only the smallest yelp left her mouth as Sergio rolled her on her back and crashed his mouth hotly over hers. He kissed her so deeply and fervently that when he finally broke off, Raquel was gasping for air. The sound of it vibrated in his chest, further stoking the fire blazing inside him.

"Oh wow," she whispered. "Is there more where that came from?"

"I am made of it, Raquel."

She giggled and hooked her leg over his waist, urging him on which he did with gusto. He claimed her lips once more and started inching his fingers beneath her pajama pants. Her skin felt deliciously hot underneath his touch. He pushed his hand even lower until he was tracing the lacy line of her panties with his fingers. He dragged his hand over cloth-covered sex and observed her reaction with half-lidded eyes.

" _Please_."

Her whimper was soft and needy, so unlike her usual low and assertive voice.

He loved her like this. He loved every single facet of her he'd had the privilege to uncover during these past two years, but he had to say the way she sounded right now was one of his favorites.

He dipped his fingers under the waistline of her panties until he could feel the velvet hair covering her wet, delicate flesh. He let out a marveling little exhale. No matter how many times they had done this, the evidence of her desire still made him feel light-headed. How had he, out of all the men in the world, managed to make her want him as badly as he wanted her?

He better not consider such miraculous things too carefully. He lowered his lips on hers again and reach down to touch her where she needed him the most. 

That was the very second the door slammed open and Sergio was forced to wrench off his fingers faster than one would from a hot stove. He scampered away from her and managed to prop himself up just when the lights flickered back on.

A woman stepped inside the room.

"Professor. I want to take charge of the heist."

Sergio scrambled for his glasses if only for the faint chance that on a closer look, the fuzzy figure in front of him would turn out to be anyone other than who he feared she was.

No such luck. It was Tokyo, trying to start a conversation that he wouldn't have had the patience for even if he wasn't currently sporting a painful hard-on. He could only pray the younger woman wouldn't spot it. He would never hear the end of it if Tokyo realized she had walked in on them when they were just about to have sex.

"Why does he have to be in charge?" the woman insisted.

He rose from the bed to better justify his decision. He could spend all night listing reasons why the plan shouldn't be changed but once he glanced at Raquel and saw the expression on her face, he deemed that most of them could be summed up in 5 seconds or less. He strode across the room, trying to firmly direct Tokyo out of the door.

But that was when Tokyo started citing Juan Ramón Jiménez and Raquel's patience wore thin.

"I don't know if you noticed, but you are spoiling an intimate moment."

Sergio pursed his lips together and half-nodded when Tokyo looked back at him. Now that Raquel had called attention to what they had been about to do, he might as well not be embarrassed about it. 

What followed next was one of the most uncomfortable interactions in his life.

* * *

After Tokyo had gotten her plan and a few dozen innuendos out of her system, he finally managed to force her out of the door. Thank god. He was afraid she would make true of her threat to stay and watch.

He turned the lights back off and walked back to bed.

"I would appreciate it if you did not talk about our sex life to Tokyo," he said sternly and lowered his glasses onto the table yet again. Third time lucky, he hoped.

"Someone had to wake her up to the reality where people other than her have sex," Raquel chuckled. "I don't know if I am more amused or offended that she has a hard time imagining us two."

"I'd prefer if none of them imagined us in _any_ way. It would help me sleep at night."

Raquel let out a throaty laugh.

She waited for Sergio to settle into the bed before crawling back into his arms.

"Not feeling it anymore?" she asked, resting her head over his heart.

Sergio shook his head. There was nothing that quite killed a boner like an image of having a threesome with Tokyo and Palermo.

"Thinking about Palermo's hairy balls?"

Sergio nodded miserably.

"That won't do. Let me help you take your mind off such things."

She cupped his jaw and gave him a long, sensual kiss. At the same time, she started climbing on top of him which was always the most delightful indicator of good things to come. He gave out a pleased sigh and grabbed her waist, his mind slowly being wiped blissfully blank.

The door swung open again with a clank.

"And one more thing about Palermo-" began a familiar voice.

Sergio did not consider himself a violent man by any means, but at that moment he briefly entertained the idea of taking Tokyo by the scruff of her neck and flinging her through the window.

"OUT!" he roared.

Her eyebrows edging her hairline from the force of his voice, Tokyo took less than a second to obey.

"Okay, okay. Jesus."

Not even a mouse with a cat on its tail would have scurried off faster. 

* * *

After that night, it took Tokyo two weeks to gather the courage to raise the issue again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is more funny than it is sexy. I hope you enjoy it regardless.

There was a chicken roosting on Sergio's chest.

He would not ordinarily mind such a thing. In fact, he would pride himself in being able to immerse himself in his mediation despite all the distractions surrounding him - such as a chicken perched on top of him.

But today, hearing the clucking of the creature was only a painful reminder that he was completely, utterly unable to focus. No matter how hard he tried, he could not chase off the thoughts plaguing his mind. 

He opened his eyes and sat up, giving the chicken a fright. It leaped from his lap back to the ground and soon joined the others chickens grazing the yard Sergio had dragged his deckchair into.

He looked wistfully at the flock. Chickens did not have the problems he had. They were _chickens_.

Chickens did not care who fertilized their eggs. They did not ask their rooster friends to do it for them, nor did it matter to them which rooster did it to which hen. No one got upset. 

Probably because rooster simply mated with all of them.

He pinched his eyes shut. Bad, bad analogy.

He had made a firm resolution not to leave his meditation spot before he had discovered a solution to his problem, but each minute he spent here only made his trepidation grow.

Sergio was quite possibly in the stickiest situation in his life - even counting the time he accidentally fell in love with the woman inspecting the robbery he was spearheading. 

However, that would be nothing compared to having to tell said woman that he had accidentally-sort-of promised to donate his sperm to someone other than her.

At the moment it had felt like the only right thing to do. He constantly felt the crushing weight of everything he owed the team he had assembled and even more so that day when they would all be forced to spend the Christmas away from their families, including his own beloved whose mother and daughter were halfway across the world from her. So when Nairobi had waltzed in and reminded him of his enormous debt to them, a cup of sperm and a few visits to a clinic had seemed inconsequential for one brief moment. Before he had even properly processed her request, he had agreed to help her.

Seeing one of his dearest and most valuable teammates so happy had made him happy as well, and the feeling had lasted sumptuous five minutes before he realized he had done.

The decision had definitely not been thought through and a second look at it revealed many awkward details he had not considered. This was not exactly how he had imagined having his first biological child, but his own discomfort about the idea of having his offspring running about the planet without his awareness was nothing compared to the guilt he felt when thinking about Raquel. 

Raquel had firmly told him before that she needed to be a part of every decision he made. He had made steps to improve himself on that regard so that their relationship would flourish, but sometimes he screwed up. 

He was fairly certain this was one of those times.

At dinner yesterday he had discreetly asked Denver what he thought Mónica would say if she learned he had promised to father another woman's child.

Denver had simply laughed in his usual manner and asked whether it would be before or after Mónica had cut off his dick.

Those words did not exactly help Sergio relax enough to reach a solution.

He couldn't just go to Nairobi and retract his offer. It would break her heart, and he was a man of honor -- that was at least what Nairobi had called him, though probably just to make him agree.

In any case, he liked to think of himself as a man who would not do such things.

Then again, it was not very honorable either to promise something like this without consulting his partner first.

Fuck. His life had been so much simpler when he hadn't had someone he wanted to share his entire life with. 

Much more depressing, but simpler.

As if his guilty thoughts had summoned her, the person he was most afraid of facing stepped through the doors to yard.

Once she saw him, Raquel smiled at him tiredly and walked over to him. For a moment, he wished nothing more than to be a chicken.

"Meditating again?" she asked.

Sergio let out a sound that could be interpreted as an affirmation. He had taken off his glasses and was now cleaning them with his sleeve, a neat excuse not to look her into the eye. Sometimes he felt like Raquel could see right through him with just one close look.

"Do you mind me being here?"

"Of course not," Sergio said, half-truthfully. He was grappling with some unprecedented qualms, but Raquel was still someone he would rather have around than not.

Raquel curled up next to him in the deckchair so that her head rested near his stomach. Sergio's fingers instinctively reached down to caress her hair. The action soothed him enough for his thoughts to momentarily crystallize.

_He should just blurt it out and get it over with._

Then again, Raquel looked so content it would be loath to disrupt her peace.

"Someone enjoyed his share of Christmas treats," Raquel then said, giving his belly a gentle tap.

"You know just the right words to a man's heart," Sergio murmured, not sure if he should be offended.

"I did not mean it in a bad way. I love your tummy."

Raquel pressed a kiss on his abdomen. It felt nice. He closed his eyes and continued threading his fingers through her hair, enjoying this calm before he would force himself to tell him.

"You know what we haven't done before?" she asked next, her voice suddenly dropping an octave.

"What?" Sergio asked, his eyes still closed. He was twirling a lock of her hair around his forefinger.

"This."

Sergio felt her fingers on his buckle, and before he could react, she was unfastening his belt. His eyes snapped open and he jolted his head up, gaping at what she was doing.

"There is no one here," she whispered comfortingly, sliding the belt carefully off. "And even if there was, they couldn't see below your waist from behind those bushes."

"Raquel, what are you-"

His words died on his tongue as Raquel's deft had slipped beneath his waistline.  
  
For the next few seconds or so, it was a struggle to breathe. Her fingers were now curled around him, gently stroking his flesh. He was fast stiffening in her palm, partially because it was _her_ , and partially because of the knowledge that she had her hand on his cock in the last place she should have her hand on his cock.

Next, she slid his pants down and freed his member from its confinement. 

He tried to form the beginning of a protest, but the only sound that came out of his throat was a choked gasp of her name because now her breath was caressing the sensitive skin of his cockhead. The sensation felt like a lightning rod to the base of his spine.

"Just relax," she hushed him and then her pink lips lowered down on him. 

Sergio lowered his head back against the support of his chair as she took her inside his mouth. His fingers dug and undug into the skin of his palms. She felt _heavenly_. The warm, wet cavity of her mouth and the teasing motions of her tongue felt so good he felt like he ought to spend the 50 years in the purgatory just to deserve one second of this. 

If she asked for the moon right now, he would already be trying to find a way to wrap it up in a pretty little box for her.

She shifted her position to take him deeper inside her mouth, and Sergio found himself lowering his hand on the back of her head to help her. 

That was when he heard the clucking again.

He opened his eyes and saw it. The chicken from earlier was staring straight at him.

He tried to turn his head away and focus on the pleasure he was receiving, but the weight of the chicken's gaze bore into the back of his skull.

He couldn't help but glance at it again.

Its eyes were almost accusative and its clucking condemning.

A surge of guilt suddenly welled up inside him. There he was, gladly letting Raquel go down on him and keeping her ignorant of the deal he had struck with Nairobi. It was _deceitful_.

Then Raquel grazed him ever-so-slightly with her teeth. It usually heightened the pleasure and gave him a strong push towards the edge, but now all he could think about was Denver's comment at the dinner table.

"Nairobi!" he gasped out, quickly jolting backwards and pulling his manhood as far away from the sharp row of her teeth as possible.

Raquel lifted her head, his precum still glistening on her lower lip. She looked as dumbfounded as if Sergio had just done a backflip and told her to get lost.

"I am sorry," Sergio said, his breathing still shaky. "That damn chicken got into my head."

She glanced over her shoulder and saw the chicken that had now lost all interest in them both. She looked back at him, even more confused than before.

"I don't understand. Were you thinking about Nairobi or were you thinking about that chicken while I was blowing you?" Raquel asked, her brows so furrowed they threatened to converge. "God, I don't know which one is worse."

"Neither! Fuck, it is just that- I have a lot on my mind."

"Should I leave?" Raquel asked, glancing around her as if expecting someone to step out of shadows and explain to her what the hell was going on.

"No." Sergio hurried to take her hands, fixing a solemn expression on his face. 

"Raquel, there is something I have to tell you."

* * *

Raquel listened to his entire tale calmly and without uttering a single word. It started to disturb him the more he went on. If Denver was to be believed, she should have at least slapped him by now.

When he finally finished, a silence fell into the yard. Raquel had still not said anything. Instead, she was looking thoughtfully into the horizon. Sergio could not tell for the life of him whether this was a good or a bad sign. Now more than ever, he wished he had more experience with relationships - not that he would have probably encountered a problem like this before.

Just when he was starting to think that she would never speak another word to him, she opened her mouth.

"Is it because she is younger than me?"

Sergio could not inch his mouth open from his dismay. He simply stared at Raquel in horror.

"I see. She is younger than prettier than me and probably has a bigger oven on top of it. Of course you would rather have her have your baby."

"No, no, no. That is not what I am saying it all," Sergio said, leaping to his feet.

_He had done it now. He would never get her back after this._

She crossed her arms and turned her head away. "Save it."

He heard a little sniffle in her voice which is what made him truly desperate. "Raquel, you are my everything. I would never-"

That was when Raquel's face twisted. Not able to keep it in any longer, she began to laugh. In fact, she began guffawing so hard she had to take support from her knees. He looked down at her, confused.

"Oh Sergio, this is too easy," she managed to gasp out between her laughs.

"You were just pretending to be mad?" Sergio asked, not certain whether he felt relieved or irritated.

"Cariño, you should have realized it when I started talking about the size of my oven."

Sergio pursed his lips, refusing to admit his error.

"But aren't you mad? I did not even talk to you before giving my permission."

Having now recovered from her fit of laughter, Raquel grew more pensive. After a moment, she tapped the spot next to her on the deckchair, urging Sergio to sit down again. He did so.

"I would have appreciated it if you had told me beforehand, but what is done is done. And it is not like I have any say in the matter anyway. It is your body and your decision. And it really is the sweetest, most enormous favor you are doing for her. It is something I have to admire."

"Aren't you bothered by the notion that I will be fathering another woman's child?"

Raquel looked at him with an oddly compassionate look in her eyes. "Cariño, I hope you are not hurt by this, but I don't think she will go through with it. At least not in the manner that you think. Last night she couldn't stop talking about the baby-"

"You talked about it?" Sergio asked, feeling the color drain from his face.

"Yes. The girls obviously didn't tell me that you were the father, though. They told me it was some fuckbuddy of hers instead."

"Fuckbuddy? Raquel, I have never-"

"I know, you sweet idiot. They just didn't want it to break it to me before you had so they made something up. Nairobi wanted to party, not get her face slapped."

"Would you have slapped her?"

Raquel shrugged. "Perhaps if I didn't know the context."

Sergio was suddenly very glad the girls had not said anything to her. 

"But that is beside the point. Let me continue. So Nairobi was over the moon, drinking and talking about the new family she was going to have. But this morning, she was weeping and looking at the pictures of her son. To me, it looked like the reality had set back in for her. She had realized that starting from a blank slate wouldn't be that easy."

"Do you think she changed her mind about having a baby?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I definitely think she would want another child, but only after she has gotten her son back. And at that point, she could have a whole new father candidate in mind."

"Ah," Sergio said, considering the idea. Perhaps the decision had been a rash one for both of them.

"Why did you think I would be hurt by hearing this?" he continued, confused.

"Well…" Raquel began, biting her lip. "What I immediately thought when you told me about the plan was that this could be some subconscious sign."

"A sign of what?"

"That maybe you would want to become a father."

"Oh."

Sergio looked down at the hands he had clasped in his lap while Raquel waited for him to answer. He hesitated for a moment.

"Truthfully, I haven't really given any thought to having another child," he said, still staring at his lap.

"Another child?" Raquel asked.

"Yes. Besides our daughter, of course."

Sergio lifted his head to find Raquel staring at him. She was smiling, and her eyes were faintly shining. 

"Oh you're just too good to be true," she said and surged forward, pressing her lips on his. Sergio accepted the kiss happily, if only a little bit bewilderedly.

"You're forgiven," she whispered after breaking apart, still lovingly cradling his cheek.

"So you _were_ mad."

"Just a bit."

Sergio smiled down at her, but his expression turned soon serious again. 

"Do _you_ want more kids?" he asked.

"I asked you first."

He sighed, looking down again. "There are a lot of matters to consider before we can discuss this seriously."

"Like your family history of disease?"

"Yes."

"I hope you told Nairobi about your childhood illness. Or the disease your brother had."

"…Not really."

" _Sergio_."

"It all happened so fast."

She let out a faint chuckle. "Remind me never to leave you alone again with someone who might want your sperm."

"Are you saying there is a demand?"

She smiled, feigning deep contemplation. "Hmmm. If I was in the situation Nairobi was in and took a look at the men we have here… Yeah, I might have gone for you too."

"You _might have_?"

Raquel laughed, burying her face into his shoulder as she did so. "I'm just joking, cariño. Of course I would want your sperm."

"I would certainly hope so," Sergio said, scooping Raquel up in his arms and pulling her down into a lying position with him. She giggled as they both dropped down with a thump.

"It is the very best sperm," she murmured as they snuggled up closer.

"Naturally."

He grew quiet for a moment as he looked down at Raquel's beautiful features. Her expression had turned a little more solemn, her eyes directed somewhere far away.

He cradled her face, looking down at her with boundless tenderness.

"After the heist, we could… reevaluate things."

"After the heist," she confirmed softly, not needing him to spell it out.

He smiled at her and she smiled at him back, the promise between them quietly sealed.

The chicken did not bother them again. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sergio gets a little territorial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry I was not able to keep up with my schedule! I was called back into work sooner than I expected after being quarantined + I was not completely satisfied with this chapter so I decided to spend a little more time on it. Perhaps updating every day was a bit too optimistic of a promise... Oh well, I will certainly try. 
> 
> However, if you see me skip a day, don't worry! I promise I will finish this :D
> 
> I would also like to thank everyone who has been commenting. The response has been amazing! This fandom truly is great, and I am so grateful to you guys.

The soccer match reached its conclusion with everyone mostly intact. Raquel herself was sporting a few bruises underneath her shorts and she was sweating like a pig, but none of it mattered in the face of such a glorious victory. She had never considered herself as someone who took sports too seriously, but there she was, yelling and beating her chest and embracing her teammates, even going as far as to jump into Helsinki's arms and let him swing her around like a ragdoll. 

After she was firmly back on the ground again - feeling maybe just a little dizzy - she tried to seek out Sergio with her eyes. He was nowhere to be seen on the field which was odd, considering that she had seen him in the corner from her eye just seconds earlier. When she lifted her eyes he saw that he had stepped out and was waiting out the bustle in the cover of the columns. 

He looked almost as if he was brooding. She wasn't too surprised. This game had been as far from a good-natured, clean teambuilding exercise as it could get. Still, it had been fun. 

After the match, everyone had collapsed onto the lawn to catch their breaths and take in the sun. Marseille and Helsinki had carried buckets filled with ice and drinks onto the field from which everyone was wildly fumbling for their own bottle. Nairobi had already grabbed one beer and was laying on her back on the grass, pressing the ice-cold drink against her forehead, her eyes closed in bliss.

"Oi Lisbon," called out Bogotá and lifted a bottle into the air. "Saved you a cider before Palermo hogged them all up."

"Why thank you," she said, graciously accepting the drink. 

Bogotá tapped the spot on the ground next to him. Just when Raquel was about to sit down, Bogotá moved a little as if to playfully trick her into sitting on his lap.

Raquel just rolled her eyes and planted herself a comfortable distance away from him. "You wish," she said dryly.

"A gorgeous woman such as you makes me wish for many things. I will keep my wishes unvoiced, however, so as not to risk losing your lovely company."

"A wise decision." She opened up her bottle and lifted it in the air. "To a good game.

"To a good game," he answered, clinking his bottle against hers before taking a sip.

"You know, the only reason you won was because your boyfriend kept showering us with fouls," he chuckled.

"That is the usual consequence for playing a foul-ridden game," she quipped right back.

"If the official rulebook deems even glancing your way a foul, then sure."

"You did wrestle me into the ground, Bogotá."

"Only once. After that, I couldn't take a single step without the referee looking like he wanted to boil my balls. You might want to talk to him before he actually considers doing that."

Raquel glanced in her boyfriend's direction. Sergio looked away the second their eyes met and focused his gaze on the far distance. Raquel would have thought nothing of it if he didn't keep bobbing his head he usually did when he was consumed by extreme irritation.

"I am sure he is just annoyed at our general gameplay ethics," she said, turning to him with an amused smile. 

"I sure hope so."

She looked up at Sergio again, trying to think of a way to tempt him to join her. 

But he was gone.

* * *

In ten minutes or so, she decided to leave the others and look for Sergio. After quite an effortless search, she found him sitting at his desk in their quarters, furiously writing something down onto his notebook. Before she could even cross the threshold and step into the room, he spoke up without turning around to look at her.

"Go enjoy your day with the others. I have a lesson to plan."

Raquel closed the door after her, signaling her refusal to follow his order.

"Spit it out, cariño. What crawled up your ass?"

"Raquel, I am trying to focus here so if you could just-"

"Are you being grumpy because I hugged Helsinki instead of you? Is that it? Do you want a hug?" she said, approaching him slowly from behind.

"I don't want a hug."

Raquel draped her arms around his shoulder and pressed her head into the crook of his shoulder. She pressed a tiny kiss below his earlobe.

"All better?"

Sergio just grumbled something incomprehensible in return.

Raquel withdrew, frowning. It was a rare occurrence when her touch did not manage to soften Sergio's sometimes very sober mood if just a fraction.

"Okay seriously, what is up with you? Have I done something?"

"It's not you," Sergio said, finally turning to look at her. "It is the rest of the team I am disappointed in."

Raquel blinked. Whenever Sergio disapproved of something the gang did, he usually did not talk about it with Raquel. He saw no sense in talking about his grievances with someone other than the subject of them which was why the words he'd just let out of his mouth baffled her more than anything in a good while.

"I think everyone is doing well enough, considering the time limitations we have," Raquel said, feeling a little defensive of her new friends.

"I'm talking about today's events."

"The match? Seriously? Considering how our bomb dismantling class went, I think today went as smooth as sailing."

Sergio did not say anything, drawing his mouth into a thin line instead.

"What was it that you found so disappointing?" Raquel probed again.

"The actions of the men did not live up to the standard I hold them to," Sergio simply said.

Raquel racked through her brain for everything that happened in the match and came out blank. Denver and Palermo had been horsing around, but being disappointed in them because of that was like being upset at a dog for relieving itself at the foot of a tree.

There was only one other incident that came to her mind. She and Bogotá had ended up in the ground, wrestling for the ball. It had been a foul amongst many other fouls, but she faintly remembered how red Sergio's face had been when he had blown into the whistle. He had looked near to exploding.

"Are you talking about Bogotá?" Raquel asked.

The look in Sergio's eyes said it all. Raquel let out a faint laugh.

"You are being ridiculous."

"It was inappropriate, what he did there."

"What was inappropriate was Denver groping at Palermo's balls but I don't see you shitting bricks about that."

"I heard him say that you two should do this more often when he had you pinned down. _And you laughed_ ," he said, his cheeks growing pink. "And later on, he tried to get you to sit on his lap."

Finally, it struck Raquel with the force of a tidal wave.

_He was jealous._

This was something entirely new. Not knowing what to do with this knowledge, Raquel simply shrugged, trying to fight off a grin.

"It is Bogotá. He does that with every woman here."

The crease in Sergio's forehead was now deep enough to hold dimes.

"Well, I am going to tell him not to. It is plain disrespectful," he said finally, waving his hand in the air as if to disperse the situation. 

Raquel crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall, a taunting smile tugging at her lips.

"Because I am a fellow member of the team or because I am _yours_?"

Sergio visibly stiffened in his seat. He did not say a word, only looked at her darkly. She would be lying if she said she didn't quite enjoy it.

She wetted her lip and to her delight saw Sergio's eyes dart to her mouth. She was close to getting him to reveal something potentially very delicious. 

"Because you a fellow member of the team," he finally managed to say.

Raquel did not let her disappointment show. Sergio was clearly not reading the room correctly. If he was, he would already have her sitting astride his lap.

"So you are not jealous?"

"Of course not. That would suggest I don't trust you and that the basis of our relationship is unhealthy," Sergio said calmly as if citing text straight from a relationship manual. Actually, she wouldn't be surprised if he was. "And I do trust you."

"You know, it is okay to be a little green-eyed every now and then. As long as you know that I love you and that you have nothing to worry about, I don't mind it."

"Of course I don't have anything to worry about," Sergio said, his brow furrowing. It quickly unfurrowed, his expression growing worried. "Should I have?"

She kept in a frustrated sigh.

"No, I am not going to offer him my eggs if that is what you are afraid of."

Sergio merely blinked at the reference before deciding against even broaching the subject.

"Good. I suppose the matter is settled then."

He turned back to his notebook, leaving Raquel feeling extremely irritated. Would it be that hard just to admit it?

"So you don't mind if I go back down there and maybe sit on his knee? Just for fun?" she asked dryly.

She saw Sergio squeeze his fingers around the armrest of his chair so hard his knuckles paled. 

When he did not answer, not even to express that he'd rather not have his girlfriend sit on another man's lap,  
Raquel let out a half-annoyed, half-amused scoff. She turned on her heel to leave.

"You know, perhaps if you were a little more territorial you wouldn't have to worry about Bogotá or anyone else flirting with me. They should know we are together," she said just before closing the door behind her.

"But they do know."

"They know, but you should want them to _know._ "

That said, she walked through the door, leaving Sergio to ponder on her words.

* * *

Because Sergio did not emerge out of his room to hold a lesson, the team corked up a few bottles of wine and retreated to the only room in the monastery with a functional fireplace as the night grew darker. Raquel supposed Sergio wouldn't have approved of them getting drunk without any special occasion, but on the other hand, he was not here to stop them either. So she poured herself a glass and enjoyed herself.

After Helsinki had told them a round of Serbian ghost stories and effectively driven Denver to the other side of the room, two drastically different conversations started to form. There was Raquel, Tokyo, and Nairobi with Bogotá and Helsinki talking about the possible points of tension in the upcoming heist with hushed voices while Palermo and Marseilles indulged Denver as he talked about... girls.

"Tokyo is obviously a Maserati," they heard him say during a pause in their own conversation.

Nairobi rolled her eyes so far back Raquel thought she might snap her ocular tendons while Tokyo just snorted. 

"Comparing girls to cars. Real classy."

"Hey idiot! Want me to go wake up your wife so she can listen to this insightful analysis too?" Nairobi called out.

Either not hearing her or not bothered by her, Denver continued. "After careful consideration, I reached the conclusion that Nairobi is an Alfa Romeo. My reasons are the following…"

"Want me to go shut him up?" Bogotá asked Nairobi. 

"No need. I want to hear these reasons," she said, amused.

Raquel glanced at Bogotá who was sitting next to her. The man was still looking at Nairobi with an odd expression on his face. Raquel smiled a little, wondering if the man should choose a more specific target for all the flirting he did.

"So if Tokyo is a Maserati and Nairobi is an Alfa Romeo, Lisbon would definitely be…" Denver mused aloud, his pupils rolling up as if on their way to retrieve all the cars he had ever admired in his life.

"Lisbon is what?" asked a figure that had suddenly materialized behind him.

Denver froze, and suspecting the worst, he turned slowly around until he saw that the man behind him was, indeed, Sergio. He had a glass of wine in his hand and a very patient expression on his face. Raquel smiled, happy to finally see him here.

After Denver only gaped at him for a moment, Sergio gestured with his free hand for him to go on.

"Please, do finish that sentence"

"Lisbon is… a wonderful addition to the team and we are lucky to have her," Denver said quickly and rose, suddenly very interested in going to study the ancient-looking chest near them. 

Sergio made his way to the sofa where Raquel, the girls, and Bogotá were sitting. When he was right in front of Bogotá, he looked at him sharply and cleared his throat. Bogotá lifted his gaze, saw the look in Sergio's eyes and instantaneously shifted over. Not sparing him one look more, Sergio seated himself down next to Raquel. Her brow had leaped up in pleasant surprise.

Just when Raquel was about to shoot him a teasing look for such a blatantly possessive action, Sergio draped a hand over her shoulder. 

Suddenly, she was warm all over. Her heartbeat quickened in her chest. Before this, the furthest he had come to being affectionate with her in public had been when he had grabbed her hand to show the others she was now on their side. This was nothing like that. This was a boyfriend wanting everyone to know whose affection he had reserved for himself.

Nairobi and Tokyo were exchanging curious glances. No wonder, for them seeing this was the equivalent to watching Professor dry hump someone. It simply did not happen.

Raquel found herself greatly enjoying the weight of his arm around her. Such a gesture radiated more warmth than the blaze of the fireplace and she found herself snuggling closer to him like a cat seeking a spot in the sun. She rested her head on his shoulder.

To her shock, only a heartbeat later she felt Sergio's lips on her forehead. 

Now everyone was staring at them. Raquel felt like an exotic animal while Sergio simply sipped his wine with half-lidded eyes, not paying any attention to the others. It was as if he did not even consider the remote possibility that people would be interested in his business. Loath it was to admit, it turned Raquel on a little.

As the others eventually started chatting again, their curiosity waning, Raquel relaxed and fell into the pleasant trance that as was enjoying her lover's proximity and warmth. Soon, however, she tensed again but not because of anything the others did.

She could feel Sergio's hand sliding down from her shoulder. Slowly but surely, it made its way to the small of her back. Unable to breathe, Raquel remained perfectly still as he drew small, affectionate little patterns on where her shirt had ridden up and revealed a patch of skin. Then his hand dipped lower again.

It came to a halt on the curve of her ass.

It was barely noticeable to the others unless they had followed the route of his hand but still, it made her feel like her gut was on fire. It took her every effort to keep blood from flowing to her face and revealing to others how excited she felt about something as simple as her boyfriend sneaking a feel of her.

But that was nothing compared to what happened next.

"So Professor…," Bogotá began, leaning a little closer. "Is there any chance of getting to play soccer again soon? I am sure we can spare some time for that now that the weather is getting so warm."

Without looking at Bogotá, Sergio uttered a single word.

"No."

Bogotá blinked, confused. "No? Is that negotiable?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Try me again after you have spent a few weeks without as much as breathing in the direction of my girlfriend," he said with a low, matter-of-fact voice.

Helsinki almost choked on his glass of wine, and for a moment, the only sounds echoing in the room were his strangled coughs.

Nairobi's mouth was as round as an O and Tokyo looked like it was Christmas. Palermo, who had looked bored throughout the evening finally sat up, interest flashing in his eyes.

Neither Bogotá or Sergio said a single thing more. The former had retreated with a faint, defeat-admitting smile flickering on his lips while the latter simply stared at the bottom of his glass.

After finally managing to gather enough oxygen into her lungs to breathe again, let alone speak, Raquel turned to her partner.

"Sergio, a word?"

The expressions on the faces of others varied from sympathy to schadenfreude as they realized their teacher might be in trouble. Denver's face looked almost blue from his attempt to reign in his laughter. Deciding to do the poor man a favor and keep him from suffocating, Raquel rose, grabbing Sergio's arm and urging him to follow her immediately.

As she led him out of the room like a puppy in a leash, she could finally hear the others explode in laughter and chatter.

"I told you so shouldn't try to flirt with Lisbon! I told you!" wheezed Denver between his bursts of laughter. Bogotá's answer Raquel didn't hear. She had already closed the door to the stairway behind her.

They ascended the stairs in silence, Sergio's nervousness progressively growing more and more palpable. Finally when they were at their door, he turned to her, a serious expression on his face.

"Raquel, I just tried to be more territorial like you wanted me to be. If I crossed a line of sorts I-"

Raquel cut through his words by grabbing the lapels of his jackets and yanking him to her lips.

After a moment of disorientation, Sergio's mouth parted under hers. He grabbed her by her waist and suddenly she was pinned against the door, being devoured by him. It never took more than a few seconds for Sergio to be robbed of all self-control after the briefest touch of her lips against his.

The scene from earlier flashed through her mind like film rewound again and again in her head, making her so hungry for him she had no sense of space and time for a moment. His hot breath and the slight fragrance of wine on him filled her lungs, only feeding the arousal that been burning inside her. By the looks of it, Sergio felt the exact same way because he was kissing her as if a man starved.

"You made me so hot back there," Raquel confessed in a rough whisper, furiously tugging at the buttons of his jacket.  
  
"I did?"

In her dizzy state, Raquel was not entirely sure whether Sergio was just teasing her by asking that or if he was genuinely surprised his little act of possessiveness had worked. There was no time to think about that now, however.  
  
"We can talk about that later. Now I just need you to fuck me. Open the damn door."

Sergio couldn't have slammed the door open faster even if he had fire licking at his backside. Hands and mouths desperately roaming, they stumbled inside and were barely able to make it to the bed before Raquel had wrenched his trousers down. Sergio fell onto the mattress, back first, and Raquel completed the job by tearing the rest of the garment off him. His cock leaped free, already half-hard and beautifully weeping.

It took a few seconds of desperate fumbling for Sergio to be able to get Raquel's panties down but the second he succeeded, she was already aligning herself with his member. No preamble was needed or wanted. They had done this for long enough to know exactly when any attempt at foreplay would just come across as ridiculous.

She was so wet it was easy to sink on him in one delicious, slow motion. A thick gasp spilled from Sergio's lips at the same time as a sigh of pleasure and relief left hers. It was always the most pleasant shock to rediscover just how good and perfect he felt inside her. She stayed there for a while if only to feel herself around him.

His breathing and every motion was labored, but still, he sat up straight on the bed. He grabbed her ass, if to seize some control or just to touch her where he wanted, she did not know, but suddenly his hips were bucking and stuttering against hers and he was roughly kneading at her flesh, urging her on. That was when Raquel began to ride him in earnest, grabbing his shoulders. 

"You are mine," he whispered, half in command, half in awe as if he still couldn't quite believe it was true. That made Raquel breathlessly kiss him. She rolled her hips up and down, exhaling a "Yes" on his lips again and again as his groan and gasps grew in rawness.

Just when she was starting to pick up her pace, there was a knock on the door.

Determined to ignore the sound, Sergio's fingers dug deeper into her skin, pulling her down on him from the most delicious angle. A startled, low moan escaped from her throat.

After a moment of silence, another knock sounded on the wood, followed by a familiar male voice. 

"Professor, I hate to interrupt what must be a very… pleasant occasion for you, but I feel it is my duty to let you know there is a problem," said Palermo through the door.

Sergio pinched his eyes shut. He stayed Raquel's wrists, halting her movements.

"Martín, I'll give you 300 million euros if you make that problem go away right now," he shouted back in a voice rough as sandpaper.

Next, they could hear Palermo's low rumble of a chuckle.

"I would do that for a fine bottle of wine, Professor, but I, unfortunately, cannot."

"What is it?" Sergio asked in a more pained voice Raquel had ever heard come from his mouth.

"Denver… accidentally stabbed himself."

"Stabbed himself?" Sergio shouted in disbelief. "How is that possible?"

"I'd imagine such things tend to happen when one wants to demonstrate a swordfight scene from one's favorite film with an ancient rapier one found from a chest one definitely wasn't authorized to open."

"Didn't I just teach you how to patch each other up? Please, for the love of god, go do that," Sergio rasped in a visible effort not to summon some force of nature to knock Palermo down the stairs.

"I'm afraid we are all too inebriated at the moment to stitch him up, and further damage, I suppose, ought to be avoided. You had the least wine out of all of us. I would wake up his wife but I feel like that poor woman has already been through enough after marrying him."

Sergio did not answer. He simply stared at Raquel with half-lidded eyes as if asking strength from her.

After a while, Palermo spoke up again.

"Professor? As much as I'd enjoy watching him bleed out, there might be far too many questions about the body from the monks come morning. So if you please…"

Finally, Sergio lifted her hips so that he could withdraw. A sigh of disappointment left her as she felt him pull himself out, replacing his hot weight with emptiness. 

Sergio rose, furiously starting to tug on the trousers they had discarded to the floor. The shirt he still had on because of the haste they had undressed in, though it was wrinkled beyond salvation. On his face was an expression that suggested he was on his way to stab Denver some more instead of fixing him up.

"I am sorry," he mouthed at Raquel. She was too sexually frustrated to offer a verbal answer so she simply shook her head.

A moment later, Sergio left with Palermo and Raquel was forced to finish what they had started on her own, albeit with lackluster success.

* * *

To the man's great confusion, she refused to say one word to Denver for a week.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sergio and Raquel fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is working on the presumption that Raquel was always supposed to go inside the bank according to the plan. Also, the scene where Sergio explains Raquel their escape plan has not happened yet so she does not know about what it entails.
> 
> This chapter is a bit heavier than the others. If you want to stick to fluff, click away and wait for the next one!
> 
> (Thank you, thank you so much for the amazing feedback! I will try to reply once I have a free moment.)

The rain was freezing and beat down on his back like a lash. Thunder roared in the horizon, demanding to be heard and felt. The weather was so well-suited for his current mood that he hardly minded it. The colder and wetter he felt, the more content he felt about the rage bubbling inside him.

Tokyo was the only one able to sense his mood. She shoved him her equipment and marched off without saying a word. The others were cursing at the rain or joking about the piss-poor performance they had just had in this drill. As if this was all just a big game for them.

"Could someone kindly step forward and list me all the fatal mistakes you just made?" he said, raising his voice so that he could be heard over the storm. The effect made the chatter instantly die down.

"With all due respect, Profesor, we are going to get hypothermia if we stay here one second longer," Mónica said, her normally bushy hair drenched and glued to her scalp.

"That's all the more encouragement for you to review your mistakes as quickly as possible."

"I think it is pretty obvious," Denver said, rolling his eyes. "Both Helsinki and Lisbon are dead and the latter can barely even walk."

This far Sergio had not looked at her in a vain attempt to reign in his anger, but now, he let his eyes travel to all the way where the woman he loved most in the world was standing - a plaque saying 'DEAD' hanging around her neck, her arm slung over Helsinki's shoulder who was helping her not to put weight on her leg.

She met his eyes coolly and indifferently, not flinching underneath his gaze. It only made the hard dark mass in his chest grow.

"Lisbon, what do you have to say for yourself?" he asked with a low voice, only letting it tremble for one syllable's worth.

Still, it was able to make everyone else visibly shrink in the face of his anger. Everyone else except for her.

* * *

Raquel hated him when he was like this. 

It was not enough to berate her for one small mistake when they were alone, he just had to do it in front of everyone else. There was nothing more embarrassing than having the rest of the team witness her life partner yelling at her like she was a child who had crashed their parents' car.

All she had done was to follow the plan to the letter. When the evacuation siren in the woods they had been practicing in had sounded, she had simply made sure the gold (that was actually small rocks) had gotten out and then made a run for it. Of course, something unexpected had happened and she had torn the ligament in her foot. She and Helsinki who had come to help her had gotten "shot" by the enemy, effectively ruining the practice drill despite the fact that they had managed to get all of the gold out.

But none of that mattered to him. He had listed everything she had done wrong again and again until she was near convinced he'd lost his voice only to start again when they had made it back to their room in the monastery.

"What if we have to climb a tree Raquel? How are you supposed to do that with your leg?"

"Why would we have to climb a tree?" she sighed as she observed the damage. Her foot was swollen, its colors varying from black and purple to swamp green. It looked bad, but she would rather die than admit it to Sergio right now.

When Sergio did not answer, Raquel closed her eyes and hoped this was the end of it.

"I don't think you understand how huge of a mistake-" he began again.

"Could you just cut it out?" she snapped. "I have no interest in talking to you when you are in this bastard mode."

Her words fell on deaf ears.

"You stayed behind for the gold. The gold!"

"Gee, Professor. I thought the gold was the point," she said, rolling her eyes as she dried her hair with a towel.

"Not when it leads to your death," he spat out.

She grasped the string around her neck and flung the plaque away. "Now I am not anymore. All better?"

"Ha ha. Very clever. There is nothing more hilarious than the subject of your demise."

"My demise, _Jesus_ ," Raquel said, starting to tug down her drenched pants. She could not bear one more second with the suffocating fabric clinging to her skin. "You are taking this way too seriously. It was a _practice_ drill.

"You know, one advantage of practice drills is discovering who is suitable for this job and who is not," Sergio said with a low, dangerous voice.

The words gave her a pause. She stopped trying to rid herself of her pants and turned to him, her eyes narrowed into two furious slits.

"What are you saying?"

"Only that some people take more risks than others, and I'm inclined to consider relocating such people. Perhaps to the Philippines, to their family. Somewhere safe."

"To each word more you let out of your mouth right now, you are going to be spending a month alone in a cold bed. So if I were you, I would shut my mouth and never broach the subject again," Raquel warned.

He did not heed her words.

"Tell me one reason why I shouldn't dial the number of your carrier right now, Raquel."

Raquel leaped out of the bed, despite the pain it subjected to her foot.

"That's it. I am going to take a shower, and after that shower, I am going downstairs where I am going to be sleeping until further notice."

"Raquel," Sergio said, half-weary, half-irritated. He followed her out of the bed.

"No. I am not talking to you!"

Trying not to let him see the grimace of pain in her face, she leaned against the wall and started to furiously peel her drenched clothing off her body. Her sodden shirt was soon discarded to the floor.

She could feel Sergio's eyes on her as she managed to push her bra down, her breasts springing free from underneath it.

"No! You do not get to look!" she shouted, grabbing the nearest pillow and chucking it in his direction. She missed by a meter.

Sergio said nothing, just watched her as she desperately wrestled with her pants. She managed to only get them halfway down her injured leg.

"Raquel, just let me-"

"Nope. You better get your monk's robes ready because I am not letting you touch me again until the sun turns cold and drops from the sky," she hissed. "Or alternatively, until you take back your words."

"I am not going to take back my words. You were reckless and got killed because of it."

"It was a drill! And even it had been real, would you have wanted me to act like a selfish bastard and just save my own skin regardless of the mission?"

Sergio's patience wore out.

"What would you do if you were in my position, Raquel?" he exclaimed. "What if I was the one going inside the bank? What would you want me to do?"

A silence followed.

"That is- that is not a fair question," she finally stammered out. She refused to even think about Sergio in danger inside the bank.

Before he could say another word, she gave up on her pants and shuffled her way to the bathroom like a penguin, dragging the garment in her feet. She felt just as ridiculous as she probably looked like.

She slammed the door shut behind her.

* * *

She had even less success on her own in the bathroom. It took an excruciating ten minutes before she was slowly able to roll down the left leg of her pants. But she still had the battle of pulling it completely out ahead of her.

After she accidentally hit her injured leg against the corner of the washbasin and let out a slew of profanities, the door opened and Sergio stepped in.

"Don't," he warned before Raquel could protest. "I am just here to help you."

He crouched down to his knees and started patiently to tug off her pant leg.

She grudgingly let him help her but turned away, refusing to look at him from her fury. That was why a gasp tumbled from her lips when her pants were finally off and she felt Sergio's fingers on the bare skin of her leg. Instinctively, she tried to lower her leg to the ground but Sergio prevented her, grasping her skin.

"Don't put any weight on it. Just let me take care of it."

Sergio held onto her leg until he was sure she would keep it suspended. Now she only had her panties left. They were practical but were sheer in a way she knew Sergio liked. It made this whole situation even more excruciating.

His hand drifted farther up until he had the fabric pinched between his fingers. She could feel his breath caress her skin, making her involuntarily shiver. He slowly pulled the undergarment down her legs as her heart hammered in her chest.

The way his dazed eyes now looked at her completely naked and wet body reignited her anger.

"I cannot believe you threatened to send me to Mindanao. What makes you think I would let you? What could you possibly do, sling me over your back and throw me into the boat?"

"Don't put ideas into my head," he growled. 

He had not lowered his hand after discarding her panties. The very opposite. His fingers were treading dangerous routes on hip, so close to where she was already feeling faint tendrils of desire. Raquel hated the effect his touch had on her.

"If you even try something like it, I am never speaking to you again."

His thumb brushed over her pelvic bone and Raquel had to close her eyes, a swallow breath escaping her throat.

"I won't if you promise me not to go back for the gold."

"I will follow the plan just like everyone else," she said hoarsely.

He grabbed the soft skin of her thigh, hard. Raquel gasped.

" _Promise me_."

She opened her eyes and looked down at him with a cool, unwavering gaze.

"No."

At once, the man had drawn himself to his full height. Raquel tilted her jaw up, never breaking the eye contact despite her body shivering from the dark intensity reflected in his gaze.

"I'm going to ask you one more time."

"N-"

Before she managed to finish forming that single word with her lips, he clamped his mouth furiously over hers. 

It took less than a second for Raquel to respond, pulling his lower lip between her teeth and thrusting herself against him with the abandon of a woman not able to hold herself back anymore.

To call it kissing would have been misleading. What they were doing right now, groping, sucking, hissing and clutching at each other couldn't have been described with such tender of a word. The way he had seized her lips and worked her mouth open was fierce and angry and hard. He had his fingers twisted in her hair, keeping her in place, chest against chest, her injured leg still suspended. She couldn't have broken free even if she had wanted to. She was completely at his mercy.

Sergio did not usually take charge like this and the loss of power made Raquel feel breathless and lightheaded, but everything from the way he gripped at her and growled into her mouth and already needily rutted against her told her how desperately he needed the power. At this very instance, it was his lifeforce.

So she let go, giving up her effort to seize back control. Instead, she let him press desperate, scratching kisses on her jaw and clutch at her breast and pinch at her nipples until she was near delirious with desire.

Soon she let her hunger show by bucking her hips against his hardness, chasing the friction. At once, she was lifted off the ground and pinned against the wall, Sergio's teeth carved on her shoulder. All she could do was gasp.

His fingers had moved from clutching at her ass to gripping her thigh to cupping her, relishing in her wetness. A heartbeat later his strong fingers were teasing her open. Raquel pushed against his touch, panting, so desperate to feel him inside her head swam.

After one digit followed another until he had plunged three fingers inside her, hard and deep and fast. Every furious thrust knocked the breath out of her lungs and made the most vulgar sounds fall from her slack jaw, but still she needed more. She bucked against him, her nails digging deep into his back.

"Please, oh god, please, Sergio," she choked out.

His fingers left her one by one, and Raquel would have cried out in disappointment and emptiness if she did not hear him yank his zipper down almost at once and soon after feel his hot, heavy, _perfect_ member nudging at her folds.

He slammed in before she could even beg him to, filling her at once with his entire length. Raquel let out a cry so shattering it drowned out the sounds of the storm outside.

His hand found its way back to tangle in her hair as he starts fucking her against the wall in near brutal space. The sensation only sharpened the pleasure, making her vision blur around the edges. She hooked her injured leg around him, letting Sergio grasp it and keep it safely off the ground. Then she moved, urging him on, desperately biting back the cries and moans of pleasure she knew would be even louder than the first one.

Just when his momentum was building up to near the edge of pure bliss for her, Sergio suddenly stopped.

His whole body went rigid like a string pulled tight. He let his breath even out, his mind visibly somewhere kilometers away.

That was when she heard the faint beeping from the bedroom. It sounded like his watch's alarm.

"I forgot," he whispered, his gaze unreadable.

"Cariño, what did you forget?" Raquel asked breathlessly. Sergio was still inside her but she could feel him soften. That alone had to mean it was something serious.

"The gun stash in the woods. If someone finds it…"

"Oh."

Raquel had completely forgotten about it too.

Suddenly, his features grew dark and hard. He pulled away from her.

"I cannot even do one thing right," he exhaled bitterly.

He pinched his eyes shut and pursed his fingers into a fist. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to punch the wall, but then remembered Raquel's presence and uncurled his hand.

When he opened his eyes again, Raquel saw that they were glistening.

"Hey it's okay," she hurried to comfort, taking one step closer. "It's okay."

"No, it's not. I need to get back there, this mistake could cost us our location."

"Sergio, it's unlikely that anyone has managed to wander there while we were gone. We haven't seen anyone besides us in this region for weeks."

"But what if something like this happened in the bank? One mistake is what could end up dooming this whole thing for us."

"But this did not happen in the bank. It was just a drill, Sergio."

He withdrew from her, shaking his head. "You don't get it. The only difference between screwing up this test run and screwing up the real thing is the sheer dumb luck that this took place earlier. A few weeks later and _everything_ would have been taken away from me."

 _It_ isn't _about the gun stash_ , Raquel realized.

"Sergio…" she began, carefully.

"Don't tell me I am taking this too seriously, Raquel. There is not a line I wouldn't cross when it comes to you. _Nothing_ I wouldn't do. So don't, for one second, tell me how to feel about a test run on whether or not I get to keep you!"

Raquel's only answer to that was wrapping her arms around him and letting him shatter against her. He buried his head in her hair and clutched at her body like he couldn't quite believe it was real. She could feel his first tears wet the hollow of her throat, and she was reminded once again why she loved him so much. There was not another man in the world capable of feeling this much about the things that truly mattered.

"Let's go put on clothes. We'll go get the guns together," she murmured, stroking his hair.

"But your leg-"

"It's fine. I just need to get into the car and wait for you there. What's important is that you are not alone."

Sergio nodded weakly.

* * *

Only after they were on their back, Raquel had the courage to say it.

"About that question you asked me earlier…" she began.

Sergio turned his head from the steering wheel to look at her. "What question?"

"About what I would want you to do in the bank if I was in your position."

"Ah."

She took his hand and entwined his fingers with her own over the gear stick. She smiled a fragile smile at him.

"I would want you to be the biggest coward in the world. "

He looked at her blankly, then nodded, as if that was what he had expected her to say all along. He smiled a little, relief tangible on his features.

He squeezed at her hand gratefully. After a moment of hesitation, she squeezed at it back.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epicentro vol. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry for taking a few days too long!

Raquel was _everything_.  
  
There wasn't a more beautiful sight than the way her hair curled around her shoulders and the way a thin rivulet of sweat cascaded over her perfect breast. No other music in the world existed besides the soft sighs that tumbled from her lips. There was no more exquisite sensation in the world than the roll of her hips and feeling her take him deeper inside.

Sergio could only hold onto her and watch in awe as she closed her eyes and tipped her head back and listen as her inebriated breaths grew even closer and closer apart.

Then, she smiled. Perhaps because she knew she was making him feel good, or perhaps because she was happy. He _made_ her happy.

That smile was when Sergio knew she would be the first and last woman he would ever love.

The realization was oddly comforting. _She_ was what his whole life had been leading up to. Even if everything went wrong (which it wouldn't), he would not need to wonder during his last moments on this Earth. It had all been for her.

Right afterwards, Raquel collapsed next to him, her breathing shallow.

"That ought to keep you down for a while," she rasped out and laughed. 

Her beautiful laugh echoed in his mind. Never more than then would Sergio have wanted to tell her the entirety of how she made him feel, but the words hitched in his throat and refused to budge despite the fact that the weight of them was almost painful on his heart.  
  
"Yes, you have very much tired me out now," he said hoarsely.

 _I have never been happier as I am now_ , was what he wanted to say but the words stayed stubbornly inside.

"I could say the same about myself. At least until you make up another plan. Then I am all over you again."

Sergio turned to look at her with a teasing smile tugging at his lips. "Are you saying that I make up plans on the fly just to get into your pants?"

"You are certainly taking advantage of how much your intelligence turns me on," Raquel admonished, grabbing a small towel from the side of the bed and dabbing it against her chest to wipe the glistening sweat off her skin. Sergio followed the motions of the towel hungrily before letting his eyes wander over the rest of her body, admiring her beauty.

He couldn't resist reaching his hand out and tracing the outlines of his favorite features with his finger. Her cheekbones, the arch of her neck, the curve of her shoulder, the toned muscles of her arm, her perfect waist.

Finally, his hand slid slowly along the swell of her ass.

"Already? What pills have you been popping?" she chuckled breathlessly.

"I'm just taking stock," he whispered.

"Of what is yours?" Her brow shot up teasingly.

Sergio smiled, not rising to the bait.

"Of every part of you I have yet to touch tonight."

His fingers made their way to her knee that she had partly draped over him. 

"How is your leg?" he asked carefully, gently caressing her calf.

"Much better," she said after a moment's hesitation.

"Good. We need to start practicing soon."

Raquel averted her eyes a little abstractedly. As Sergio's fingers drifted even lower, close to the spot she had been injured, she grabbed his hand and brought it between them, squeezing it lovingly.

"So… city of Love? Hmmm?" she said, changing the subject. 

Sergio grinned.

"Is this a hint of some deeper feelings you might be harboring towards me?"

"Well, this is embarrassing," he sighed. "I guess I have no choice but to come clean now…

Raquel leaned closer, beaming with mock curiosity.

"….I kinda have a thing for you." He brought his thumb and forefinger close together. "Just a teeny tiny thing."

"Oh wow. I never would've guessed. You have been so good at hiding it."

"I know, I know. I should have just named the plan something else to throw you off the scent."

"Too bad you didn't. Now it's going to be so awkward between us," Raquel bemoaned before leaning forward to press a breathless kiss on his mouth.

"So awkward," Sergio agreed, smiling against her lips.

Next, Raquel had his face in her hands and was softly caressing his jaw with her thumb. Her voice then grew softer, more delicate as if she had been toying with the words quite some time without wanting to reveal it. 

"For how long?"

"From the first time I saw you," Sergio answered truthfully, looking deep into her eyes, only to be rewarded with Raquel grabbing a pillow and smacking him with it.

"Ouch."

"Liar. The first time we met, I had spent almost 18 hours inside the tent. I was sweaty and pale and disheveled. You must have thought I had just come from a bender," she accused. "Besides… I was a target. There cannot have been anything else but my vulnerabilities you saw in me."

Her voice had gone a little stiffer. It was a dangerous ground they were treading whenever one of them brought up the initial phase of their relationship. Sergio knew she no longer held any of it against him but still, there was not much he wouldn't give to have walked into that bar as himself that day, not the Professor. He would have wanted the first time he had seen her to be untarnished by any deception.

"From the very first time I saw you," he repeated.

Of course, at the time he had been just a man looking at a beautiful woman and feeling out of his depth. He'd found himself excessively nervous before trying to fish for information from her but at the time he hadn't realized it was for the same reason a schoolboy stuttered in front of the girl he admired.

That was one problem he had never even considered while preparing the plan. Infatuation at first sight - if he had recognized it at the time, he would have kicked himself. No one was that stupid.

Yet, here he was.

Raquel let out of an incredulous snort but seemed to accept his answer without any further comments. He should have left it at that, but that was when the troll living in the dark nook of his brain that still couldn't believe his luck had to rear its head.

"What are you doing with me?" he asked, his voice coming out frailer than he'd expected.

A moment of silence followed. Raquel wrinkled her brow. 

"What do you mean?"

He gestured with his hand. "Just look at us two. You are this amazing, gorgeous, headstrong woman and I… I am what I am. I am a bumbling, inept mess when it comes to expressing human emotions. My only hobby and life's passion is designing robberies. I am at a complete loss when it comes to our relationship or fatherhood. For god's sake, I screwed up your _life_ -

"First of all, you did not screw up my life," Raquel interrupted him. "I screwed it up myself, thank you very much. If I did not believe in the same thing as you did, would you really think that I would have let you get away with it? I could have turned in those postcards _immediately_."

Sergio nodded, fully aware of how fragilely his fate had rested in her hands for that long, painful year. He would have been safer if he had not left the coordinates… but the slender chance that she might return to him was worth the risk of a life sentence. Besides, there would have been little difference between life without her and life in captivity anyway.

"And to your other points…" she continued, shifting her position so that she could drape herself on top of him. She took his head in the cradle of her hands.

"Sergio, there is no one else in the world I'd rather be with. You are the love of my life."

Sergio's heart started beaming in his chest like the sun itself. Raquel continued, smiling at the evidence of joy on his features.

"You do not get to pick at yourself in my presence. Don't tell me you are bad at expressing your emotions. You are the most charming and romantic man I have ever known. Who else could have made me fall halfway in love with them just by offering to be my bodyguard with glasses?"

"I meant it. We had only just met but after hearing your story, I was willing to..."

"I know, cariño," she said softly, dropping a kiss on the corner of his mouth. "I can hardly even believe my luck for finding you. You are the most wonderful father to our little girl and the sweetest, kindest, most loving boyfriend you could ask for."

Sergio's smile faded. He then wrinkled his nose at the word which made Raquel quirk an amused eyebrow.

"Oh, suddenly dissatisfied with all my loving praise?"  
  
Sergio shook his head. "No, it's not that. It's the word boyfriend that bothers me. It sounds so… _banal_. Like I am just some guy who takes you dancing every now and then and gets handsy with you on the backseat of my car."  
  
"To be fair, you are guilty of both of those things, but I see your point. What would you want me to call you then?" she asked, smiling, shifting her weight so that she was face to face with her.

Now looking straight into her soft brown eyes, Sergio was suddenly rendered speechless. He swallowed.

Of course, the answer was clear in his mind as it had been for a long while now. But how could he express it to her when he'd had no success this far?

_Not three weeks after Raquel had first arrived in Palawan, Sergio had left the island for Manila at the same time as she had returned to Madrid to get her mother and daughter. Still feeling high from her acceptance to bring her family here so they could share their lives together, (and from the fact that she had hardly left his bed before that day) he had sought out the best jeweler in the city and bought the most beautiful ring he had in his selection. After the lovestruck haze had dissolved, he had regretted his rash decision and spent the next few days contemplating what kind of a fool he would have made out of himself if he had suggested something like this to the woman who had been his only a handful of weeks. She would have laughed him out of the room._

_He had briefly considered just chucking the ring to the ocean and forgetting he had ever bought it, but on the spur of the moment, he had wrapped it up on a silken handkerchief instead and hidden it inside a rock formation on the beach near his house._

_Raquel had returned with her family a few days later and he'd gone back to made sure the ring was still there but had not taken it out. Some weeks later he'd gone to check up on it, but left it there once again. Even after they had been forced to move, he'd still returned to that spot every now and then to go look at it. Not because the ring was particularly precious (he could have bought Raquel any ring in the world with the amount of money he had), or because he had been subconsciously hoping someone had stolen it and he wouldn't have had to think about it anymore. No._

_He'd simply done it because every time he had gone to see it, there had been a chance that one day, he would have had enough courage to take it home with him._

"I…" he began, then paused to tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear if only for the excuse not to say anything for a moment. Raquel leaned against his hand, melting like always when he showed her this kind of affection. The adoration shining from her face suddenly made him more nervous and excited than ever before.

This would be the perfect opportunity. The candlelights were flickering, and she was naked and looking at him like he was the only man in the world.

She would probably say yes.

 _Probably_.

"Would you object to…" he tried again, but then his doubts set in.

 _Would you object to?_ If he phrased it like that, she most likely _would_. Besides, he was not even down on one knee. It was all around wrong.

Although he could not just climb off the bed and kneel on the floor now. Not when he was naked. The flopping dick between his legs would be far too distracting.

He grabbed her hands and brought them a little awkwardly on his chest between their bodies. Raquel tilted her head, half amused, half confused.

"It would be my honor if…"

Far too formal. If he finished the sentence, she would think he was joking. There was no more unbearable thought in the world than Raquel thinking that he was joking about something like this.

Now suddenly mute again, still holding her hands but not meeting her eyes, he must look like the biggest ass in the world. Raquel was looking at him quizzically, probably thinking these exact thoughts. His fortitude was beginning to give up on him.

Would it even be a good idea to do this now? They were just about to face maybe the most dangerous challenge of their lives. Hearing her _yes_ now would probably only curse the whole pursuit.

But he had already gotten this far. If he did not say something now, something that would at least hint at his wishes, he might not ever work up the nerve again.

"When this job is over… I'd like you to go to our first house in Palawan," he began, his voice surprisingly resolute. "There is a stone formation in the hillside near the small beach. If you shift the second biggest stone a little bit to the right, you should see a small hole that your hand can just go through. I'd like you to take a look at what that hole has in it. And after you have done that, I'd like you to come to me and tell me what you thought of it."

It was the clumsiest way any man had ever probably presented it, but it would have to do.

Raquel considered him doubtfully as if she was not sure if he was joking or not.

"This is not a prank or anything? Some crab is not going to come and take out my finger when I shove it in there?"

"Of- of course not," Sergio stammered out, almost offended at the mere suggestion.

"Sounds just like something that a person who had set up a prank would say. Oh well. If it makes you happy, I am going to stick my fingers into that hole."

She pressed a sweet kiss on his lips to seal her promise, and something warm and hopeful unfurled inside Sergio. When this heist would be over, he might truly get everything he'd ever wanted. It would be something to keep him going even when things got hard - what they inevitably would.

"Could you promise to do something for me too?"

"What is that?" Sergio asked languidly, willing to give her anything she would ask for at this very moment.

"Don't doubt how I feel ever again. I love you far too much for it not to break my heart," she said seriously.

Sergio nodded, trying his very hardest to believe her. The task was made easier by the wholeheartedly reverent way she was looking at him. In fact, it gave him enough courage to finally say it.

But just when he was about to utter the words, Raquel kissed him and his mind was wiped blank. Her lips were far too soft and enticing to allow for any thoughts other than about how good she tasted. Soon, Raquel's lips parted some more and Sergio grabbed the back of her head, readily taking this opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth. 

At first, they were kissing softly and languidly, only enjoying the taste of each other and the feel of their warm bodies twined together. But then Raquel let out a slow, sultry moan which had the same effect on Sergio as a spark of fire on gasoline. 

Despite his weariness, he could feel himself getting excited again. Raquel's naked body was simply too difficult to ignore, especially when her breasts were pressed so deliciously against his chest and when other equally gorgeous parts of her were in just in arm's reach. He grabbed her ass, causing her to giggle and start peppering his jaw with kisses.

"That did not take long," she teased and snaked her hand between their bodies to grab his rapidly-swelling member.

"What can I say? You have the kind of effect on me," he answered breathlessly, enjoying her unhurried strokes, his eyes closed. 

"Take me into your arms. I am too tired for anything else."

They exchanged one more fervent kiss before Raquel settled in Sergio's embrace, her back against his chest. He pressed his lips lightly on her shoulder before slowly pushing into her.

Raquel let out a loud sigh.

They were startled out of their trance by the sound of something insistently and loudly thudding against the floor. It sounded almost like the head of a broom being beaten against the ceiling of the room below.

"You. Have. Already. Done. This. Three. Times. Tonight," came Denver's muffled voice through the floor. "For the love of god, let me sleep!"

While Sergio slipped into a speechless shock, Raquel took the reins. She quickly propped herself to an upright position.

"Denver? What are you doing there? I thought there was no one sleeping below us."

"Mónica was feeling a little irked so I decided to give her some space."

"She kicked you out of bed?" Raquel asked frankly.

"It's none of your business… But yeah. I thought I'd be able to sleep here because Helsinki spent one night in this room but apparently not! I CAN SEE WHY HE MANAGED ONLY ONE NIGHT!"

Raquel looked at Sergio, her features brimming with barely held-in laughter. Sergio cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to determine how to best handle this situation.

"Denver, I'm sorry we disturbed your sleep, but there is no need to get angry. We did not know you were down there and we were simply… Uh…"

"We'll keep it down," Raquel interjected before Sergio further embarrassed himself.

"You better!"

After that, they heard no more noises from downstairs. Sergio slumped down against the mattress with a sigh.

"That is one more person I cannot look into the eye at breakfast."

"Oh, cariño… I don't know if this helps, but I don't think there is a single person left who is not aware of how we spend our nights," Raquel comforted.

"No, it does not."

She let out a soft chuckle. "I do not mind that they know."

"You don't mind people knowing how many times we do it in one night?" Sergio asked incredulously.

"No. I do not mind that they know were are in _love_."

That was certainly a nicer way to put it. Sergio nodded and smiled at her before bringing her face closer to kiss her again. 

Raquel answered by humming against his lips and reaching her hand down again. When Sergio felt her fingers wrap around him, he bit back a surprised sound.

"I thought we promised Denver-"

"We just said we'd keep it down," she purred and cut off any further protests with another kiss.

That was when the beating against the floor started again, even more furiously this time.

They both let out a simultaneous sigh.

* * *

After that night, Sergio was twice more tempted to ask her, but the bustle around the plan quickly took off his mind of such things.

A week into the heist, he tried again and almost succeeded, but he was up in a tree and she hiding in a barn, and there was no way to do it right.

Just a while later, he lost his chance to ever ask her again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the heist, heartache still follows Raquel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I am so sorry for taking this unbelievably long with the final chapter! It is rather embarrassing, especially after promising to update this daily (yikes). The reason for this was good though, I fell ill and had a fever for almost two weeks straight which did not make it easy to get any writing done. But now I am well again which means I am wrapping this up now and then going back to work on my other fics! Hopefully the length of this chapter will make up for the wait.
> 
> Thank you everyone for bearing with me and for the incredible support and enthusiasm this fic has received. I couldn't be happier or more grateful. This fandom rocks!
> 
> This chapter is a bit angstier than the others, but no worries, I am not going to make these two suffer any more than they already have to in the show haha
> 
> Huge shout-out to my friend Moniek aka Mo9Ja for beta-ing this and to my whole serquel groupchat, you are all amazing! Enjoy your soggy origami ;)

Finally, they were at the end of the road.

The team had packed themselves into the cellar to get access to their escape tunnel as soon as it was finished. All there had been left to do was to wait, which was easier said than done. All of them were beyond exhausted from the day's events but at the same time, their systems were so full of adrenaline even the thought of rest was a sheer impossibility. All they could do was to stare into the darkness and hope for the best. There were no thoughts waiting to be voiced by either of them. No one wanted to express aloud what might be ahead, whether it was success or failure. It was all still too fragile to be spoken into existence.

There was another reason why Raquel and the other women would rather spend the remaining time in silence. There was nothing more to be said about what had happened. Thankfully, none of the men had asked them about Gandía's body when they had come back from the  library . Raquel supposed they understood.

Finally, in the early hours of the following day, an extremely weary-looking Tokyo handed her the radio.

"What is this for?" she asked dumbfoundedly, the last 24 hours having taken a toll on her mind.

"It is the Professor," she said, speaking to her for the first time in hours.

At that, Raquel practically slammed the receiver against her ear. Tokyo turned her back and huddled closer to the others in a polite if somewhat futile attempt to give her privacy in this cramped room. Raquel found herself grateful beyond words for it.

She waited with bated breath. This was the moment she had been desperately waiting for, hearing the voice of the man she loved after days of unbearable waiting. The events unfolding after her entrance to the bank had allowed for no time or opportunity to talk to him.

At first, the line was dead, making her worry that this had been only some sort of cruel joke and that she should have known better than to think she would finally get to speak to him. But after a moment, there was a faint, tired voice from the other end of the line.

"Tokyo? Did you pass it over yet?"

She couldn't help it; tears instantly sprung to her eyes at the sound of his voice. It felt like decades since the last time she'd heard it.

"Oh Sergio," she exhaled, her voice breaking midway through. "Is it really you, mi amor?"

The other end of the line was silent for one breathless moment before the most beautiful sound followed. A choked sound of disbelief followed by a sigh brimming with boundless relief. He sounded like a man who had just found his reason for being.

"Raquel."

The way he breathed out her name was so full of love and happiness that she had to cover her mouth with her hand in order not to start openly weeping.

It sounded like he was going to say something more but Raquel was faster.

"I am so sorry," she said before Sergio could get a word in edgewise. "I tried to scream that I was alright, but they were holding a hand over my mouth and I-"

"Don't. All that matters is that you are alive and well," he exhaled. "It is… it is something I barely dared to even hope despite all evidence to the contrary. "

"I am so happy you found me."

"I did my everything to get to you. You must know that I-"

"I know, cariño, I know," she comforted. She would move mountains to save Sergio, and she had no doubt in her mind he would do the same.

"I never thought I would hear your voice again," he exhaled. The immense relief was palpable in his voice, and Raquel felt her chest ache at every word.

"It's okay. I am here."

Sergio was quiet for a moment as if focusing solely on drinking in her voice.

"Just keep talking and maybe I'll start believing it," he finally rasped out.

She smiled. "What do you want me to say?” Before he could answer, she continued teasingly. "Keep in mind that Helsinki is near and is already looking at me apprehensively."

He let out a weak laugh at that. Far too weak.

It troubled her. They all had worked so hard and gone through so much to deny themselves the simple pleasure of reprieve in the form of flirting.

"But I could find somewhere more private," she murmured with a sultry voice, giving it one more try.

"There is no need for that."

His voice was hoarse and rough as if he had not slept for weeks. Or as if he still had something weighing on him, making it harder for him to relax despite the probable success of their plan.

"Because we are going to see each other soon, right?" she asked carefully, hoping to be proven wrong once she heard the glee in his following answer.

But what she received in response was only silence. Deep, harrowing silence.

"Sergio-," she began, feeling a little frightened.

Next, his voice grew strained, almost painfully so, as if he was holding every ounce of himself together to be able to keep talking.

"I need to talk to you about something. It is very difficult for me so I'm going to ask you to not interrupt me while I speak. I just want you to answer my questions and listen to me. Is that alright?"

Raquel's throat ran dry.

His tone of voice had changed eerily towards something more like the Professor than Sergio. Whatever he had to say had to either be related to further complications in the heist or, perhaps more frighteningly, something so painful he had no choice but to try to compartmentalize it. Either way, she'd better brace herself.

"Alright," she said finally, swallowing.

The other end of the line was silent for a while as if Sergio was taking some time to gather himself.

"Why did you do it?" he then asked with a quiet, frail voice.

Raquel paused. She was not sure what he meant by that.

If he was talking about a misstep in the heist, there was an infinite amount of bad choices he could be talking about. Describing the last 24 hours as chaotic would be an understatement, and Raquel could list at least a dozen instances where she had directly gone against his order. But so had everyone else.

Not a single person in the group could be commended by their clean obedience to the plan during this heist. Even Manila couldn't be pointed at despite having probably the most uneventful job of them all. The last she heard, the woman had shot a hostage in the leg - though not without a good reason.

"I don't…"

"Gandía," he continued, answering her unvoiced question.

She had expected that to come bite her back in the ass later, but not quite so soon. It had never occurred to her that Sergio might object to the way it had been carried out. Certainly no one of the group had

She, Tokyo and Stockholm had not planned on killing him. It had just meant to be a simple test; can they trust him or not.

They had handcuffed him to the radiator in the library and given the man a choice between getting himself shoved into the smelting furnace or cooperating calmly and retaining his life. Gandía had gone for the latter.

The three women had volunteered to guard him, but had devised a plan the second the men were out of earshot. They would only send one of them into the room with him and see whether he would still have enough sense not to try anything. Raquel had volunteered for the post, curious to know whether Gandía would deem her an easy target or not. Unbeknownst to him, Tokyo and Stockholm would be right outside the door, ready to blow his brains out if the man did just like they thought he would and tried to break free. The cartridge of Raquel's gun had been removed beforehand in case he tried to grapple her for it. Her real means of defense had been hidden beneath her overalls in the form of a small glock.

None of them were the least bit surprised when Gandía dislocated his thumb again just a half an hour later. However, he had not gone for the gun in Raquel's holster like she had predicted. Instead, he had grabbed a letter opener from a drawer in the desk and jumped her, aiming to slit her throat. Luckily Raquel had managed to duck just before he'd slammed the device into her artery and Tokyo had shot him in the leg just a fraction of second later.

When he had been stooped over from the pain, all three women had surrounded him. What followed had been a cooperated execution. Not a painless one, but a swifter one than he probably deserved.

"What does he matter? One dead hostage does not break the case," she'd breathed into radio. "We are still going to make it."

The deafening silence from the other end of the line told her all.

Raquel found herself growing frustrated. Sometimes, she did not understand how black and white he saw some things. Yes, it would have been preferable to do without any bodies, but this was the murderer of one of their own. Even if she, Tokyo and Stockholm had not dealt with him, there would have been a line to take him out. Gandía was never going to make it alive.

When he still remained silent, Raquel decided to speak up in her defense.

"He murdered Nairobi, Sergio. Did you honestly expect us to let that bastard live? I know you do not understand, but some men do not deserve-"

Finally, his voice cracked into life again.

"I  _ do  _ understand why you did it. I know perfectly well the kind of man Gandía was, and I felt the same way about Nairobi as you all."

"So you say, but if you truly did understand, you wouldn't be interrogating me about my motives."

"Don't assume things about me, Lisbon."

His voice was cool and the use of her code name stung, but still, she kept on going, determined to prove her point.

"I am just saying you weren't there, so you don't get to judge us. You didn't know how it felt to look him in the eye, knowing what he had done."

The next time he spoke, his voice was colder than ever before.

"I may not have been there, yes, but do  _ not  _ tell me I don't know that feeling. _ I have stood face to face with Alberto _ ."

Raquel's breath hitched in her throat.

Now it was her turn to stay silent. She contemplated for a moment whether she should say more about this newly-revealed aspect of Sergio, but decided against it. Sergio's feelings about Alberto's ongoing existence could wait.

"Alright. So we're on the same page," she murmured.

Sergio made a cool, affirmative sound.

"But then why are you asking me why I did it?"

"I was not talking about you killing Gandía," he said, his voice starting to quake. It gave Raquel a start. She had never heard him sound so angry before.

Without giving her a chance to get a word in, he continued, sounding like every word gave him great pain to utter. "I was asking you why you would go to that room with him, alone, as good as unarmed and just wait for him to attack you? Why would you do that?"

So that was why his voice was shaking.

"We were trying to-"

"Yes, I know. But would that test have been worth your life? If he had managed to strike just a little bit to the right, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I would have never gotten to talk to you again-"

His voice cracked a little then, and he had to pause in order to collect himself all the while Raquel remained silent, her heart knotted in her chest.

He began again, his voice no less faltering.

"A part of me died when I heard those gunshots, Raquel. And I thought- I thought I had been given my life back when I saw your image on a CCTV screen. But then I saw you march into that room with Gandía, alone. I had to watch him stab you in the neck. You fell down like a rag doll and I couldn't see you on the floor. _ I couldn't see you, Raquel. _ "

She couldn't prevent it. The pain in his voice made the first sob rise through her. Again, it took a moment before Sergio could continue.

"I had to witness you die twice. I don't know how to even begin to recover from that."

Raquel closed her eyes. She let out a long, shaky breath, trying to stifle further sobs from escaping. She had not even realized Sergio might have been watching. She had hurt him deeply, but at the same time, she couldn't find it in herself to apologize for what she had done. If it hadn't been her, it could have been Mónica who maybe wouldn't have ducked in time. Or if they hadn't done the test at all, they could have trusted Gandía with something that could have taken even more lives.

"I am sorry, Sergio. But you have to understand that this is what I signed up for. Your team potentially getting hurt is what you signed up for, too."

"No, I didn't," he said harshly. "I didn't sign up for this. You promised me you would be a coward. You broke that promise."

Raquel couldn't help but get defensive at the accusation.

"I didn't promise you anything. And why are you angry at me and not Tokyo or Stockholm? It was Tokyo's idea, actually. And if I hadn't done it, one of them would have. Would you be calling them right now to give them a piece of your mind if that were the case? Or did you sign up for the others getting hurt, but not me?"

Sergio was quiet for a moment.

"You are my love," he finally answered, his voice heartbreakingly light.

Raquel did not know what to say to that despite it being the very answer she had expected deep inside her.

As she did not speak, Sergio continued with a weak voice.

"You are right, Raquel. I cannot be impartial when it comes to you, and that is exactly the problem. And I am not angry at you. I am angry at myself. You died  _ twice  _ because of me."

"No, I didn't. You had nothing to do with either of those incidents."

"I involved you in this."

"Haven't we been through this? It was my choice," she hissed in the radio. Her head would implode if she had to have this conversation again.

"But you wouldn't be there, your neck just centimeters safe from being sliced open if it wasn't for me. You would be safe in Madrid, following this all from the television."

"But I am fine, Sergio! Nothing happened to me! And I am getting out soon, and we are going to be fine."

Her voice was getting loud enough for others to hear it. She did not care.

"And we'll have twice as many people chasing us down than before," he said, defeated.

"They won't catch us."

"They might. And if they do, they are going to hurt you just like all the times they hurt you before, because of me. I- I cannot bear the thought of it. I can't do it anymore. I cannot watch you die again and again."

Raquel's heart skipped a beat.

"What are you saying?"

For the next part, he tried to steady his voice.

"I'm going to have to make adjustments to your escape plan. You are going to go to a hideout separate from me. Marseille will take you. It is… safer for you that way. It's me they are going after."

"That is bullshit. They have no less means to find you than they would any of us."

"Two people always leave more tracks, no matter how few."

"But-"

"Just do it for me, Raquel. Please."

His voice was so tired she didn't have the heart to protest, even if his logic was deeply flawed.

"Okay, I will do it," she sighed. "But when we all come out of our hideouts, you are going to get me, right?"

He was silent again which was not the answer she had been hoping for. She felt anger rising within her again.

"I won't let you ditch me," she spat out.

"I'm not ditching you. I just need to think. I need to consider what is best for you and our family."

"Sounds like you are thinking about leaving me."

He did not deny it, which made Raquel want to throw the damn radio to the wall and scream.

"I am not… I am not good for you Raquel," he answered after an eternity.

"We have a little girl! Don't you fucking dare-"

"I promise I am going to take care of you all, no matter what."

Raquel clenched her eyes shut and lowered the radio for a while in order to prevent Sergio from hearing her shallow, furious breaths. She had not gone to hell and back in the last few days to hear this fucking drivel. How dared he do this to her now after all they had been through?

Finally, she lifted the radio back to her ear, sizzling with rage.

"If this is really it, it better be for good. I never want to see or hear from you again.  _ Never _ ."

She heard Sergio's breath catch, and she instantly regretted her words.

But it was too late to take it back. He let out a small, defeated sigh.

"If that is what you want."

_ No, fight it! Fight me! _

But the words were stuck in her throat.

"I love you more than anything," he whispered.

Those were his final words to her.

Straight after, the line was cut and Raquel was left in the deafening silence all around her.

* * *

That had been a month ago; the last time she’d heard his voice or had any contact with him for that matter.

She had barely had time to say goodbye to anyone else either. After the job had been finished, each one of them had been sent off and scattered all over Europe in various hideouts provided by members of Sergio's network of allies. For all she knew, Palermo could be basking in the sun in Greece while Tokyo was freezing her ass off in Finland.

The reason for staying in Europe was simple. They would be expecting them to run off abroad the second they got out and would spend the next few weeks scouring through every port in Asia, Africa, the Americas and perhaps even Antarctica. They would not even think to look at Europe before they were long gone.

In a way, it followed the same principles as Sergio's epicenter plan - hiding in plain sight.

It hurt to think about that memory nowadays.

She herself had been placed back in Italy in a remote farm. There were no other buildings for ten kilometers in every direction, and she couldn't have been more grateful. She could have gone ballistic if she had been forced to live in someone's attic or cellar for the fear of curious neighbors.

The freedom of movement also meant that her hostess, signorina Giulia, did not expect her to just twiddle her thumbs during her stay. She was expected to help with various chores in order to get some food in front of her every evening.

Her life there was tolerable enough. After all, she had the hope of being safely reunited with her family at the end of it. But there were still a few weeks to go, and she was stuck living in the uncertainty of whether she'd ever see one member of her family ever again.

Luckily, the labor effectively kept her mind off such depressing matters during the day, but every night when the day's work was done, there was nothing else to do but think about Sergio.

She shouldn't have said what she last said to him.

Of course, he would have been considering distancing himself from her after witnessing her nearly die twice. She knew how heavy the guilt felt on his shoulders after seeing him struggle not to get crushed by it more times than she could count. If she had been Sergio, removing herself from his life would have seemed like the kindest choice as well. But only at that very moment, at the height of emotional turmoil the job had brought on them.

Given time, maybe only a couple of days, he would have realized how idiotic of a decision it was. It would have been a coward's move, and surely a way to lose everything he had fought so hard to keep. But instead of letting him come to the conclusion on his own, she had effectively made sure he would probably never dare to contact her again.

These were her conclusions about her situation when her mind was the clearest, but more times than not, the storm of emotions that passed through her even at the memory of their last conversation did not allow for rational thought.

Some nights, she felt sorry for herself. Other nights, she was consumed by rage. But most often, those two feelings blended together, making it impossible to distinguish them.

_ Maybe she was better off without a man who still stubbornly excluded her from his decisions, _ she would fume one moment, only to start a second later remorsefully dwelling in all the things she could have said to Sergio in order to convince him not to leave her.

She hated him from taking her choice away but hated herself for breaking her promise and his heart.

In her darkest moments, she wondered whether he was better off without  _ her _ . After all, she had probably given him enough grief to last a lifetime inside just a handful of days. It was quite a mental whiplash to go from questioning whether Sergio was bad for her to questioning whether she deserved him at all, but so her mind worked these days. She was hard-pressed to get a moment's break from either cursing his name or wanting to crawl up in a hole and die.

Routine was the only thing that kept her reasonably sane. Up at 5am, at the first rays of the sun, work until the  _ riposo _ , followed by more work until dinner. And at 8pm sharp the phone would ring. Her hostess would answer a call from what had to be an animal ranch about what kind of horse feed they would be able to offer in the morning, and it was always the same; twenty crates of bran, a dozen crates of barley, ten crates of flaked maize, five crates of peas and three crates of sugar beets. Raquel found herself always annoyed that the woman had to answer this call since the ranch hardly ever seemed to order anything, but she would be lying if she claimed that the sound of the familiar litany did not comfort her as she listened to the phone call in her room.

But after the call, it was her and her thoughts only.

Matters were made worse the morning Raquel stumbled on the stairs and fell on her bad leg. She was ordered to bed rest by her hostess which couldn't have been a worse fate. Now she had nothing else to occupy herself with other than the man she loved and how she might never see him again.

Those long hours in the bed were the first time she cried after her arrival.

As the daylight turned into dusk, Raquel's tears had dried but her mind was still shrouded in a dark haze. Time seemed stagnant up until the point she heard the familiar ring of the telephone downstairs.

"Ah yes. Tomorrow morning we would be ready to deliver…"

Raquel mouthed the list with signora Giulia, getting even the note of her voice right.

"…but unfortunately we are out of peas."

That gave her a pause, stirring her a little from her gloomy fog. All she saw every day were beans. The woman couldn't be speaking the truth.

She shifted closer, now burning with curiosity. It told a lot about her life on this farm that her hostess lying about pea quantities could have just been the most tantalizing event during her whole stay.

The wall was thin enough for her to hear muffled, almost agitated words from the other end of the line. The hostess then answered, saying something wholly unexpected.

"It was only a minor accident.  _ Minor _ . No, no, there is no need to send anyone over."

Raquel sat up, pricking up her ears. But the call ended as soon as it had gotten remarkable.

"Yes, of course. I will make sure of it. Until tomorrow then."

With that, the woman hung up and she heard her exit the room, leaving Raquel with one uneasy question in her mind:

_ Were they talking about me? _

* * *

The next night, the list was back to normal. Not wanting to raise her hostess' suspicion that she knew something was up, she waited for a few days after her leg was better before announcing that she had a weird pain in her chest at dinner. She then retreated to her room to wait for the phone to ring which it did, at 8pm sharp as always.

Lo and behold, they were suddenly out of peas again.

The next day she was forced to bed rest again, but this time she did not mind. She needed all the time she could to get to plot out her next move.

On Tuesday, she told her about her desire to take the motorcycle that was kept in the garage for a spin. In that night's call, signora Giulia told the caller they were low on barley but she would be taking care of it. The next day, the motorcycle had been hidden.

On Thursday, Raquel made up an excuse to stay in the kitchen and watch signorina Giulia as she answered the call. The list did not change, but the woman did add at the end that they should both be cautious of the weather.

Finally, on Saturday, she told her hostess that she missed her boyfriend. An hour later, she listened to the woman tell on phone that their sugar beet cubes were on sale. The person on the other end of the line did not say anything for the longest time. The call was then ended, no further words exchanged.

After that, there was only one more thing left to try. Just before the daily call, Raquel stuffed the toilet bowl in the guest bathroom full of barley, effectively clogging it. She then flushed the toilet and watched the water start to flow down onto the floor. It was not the proudest moment of her life, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

A minute before the call was supposed to take place, she called out for signorina Giulia. "The toilet is overflowing!"

She immediately heard the woman stop what she was doing and rush in the direction of the guest bathroom which just gave her just the chance. She ran as fast as she could to the kitchen and grabbed the phone before it had even let out its first ring.

"L'avena farm, how can we help you?" she answered, breathless.

Only the first syllable of what had to be her name managed to slip out of the mouth of the man who answered before he stopped himself and hung up in a hurry.

It was  _ him _ .

* * *

Raquel only had a small window of time to act in. Her hostess had been angry about her little trick and was undoubtedly onto her. She had to make a break for it soon before she would realize to confine her in her room for the rest of her stay.

After a couple of days when signorina Giulia had her guard down, she climbed out of her bedroom window and headed to the barn where she knew her hostess had hidden the motorcycle. She had spied on her as she had dragged it there.

On a piece of paper was an address written that had taken her days to find. It had been relatively easy to find out the number of the caller as the phone in the kitchen displayed it when the call happened, but a harder task had been to get access to the internet to connect the number to a location. She had only succeeded yesterday when signorina Giulia had left her old tabletop computer unguarded for a few precious minutes.

_Cinguettio dei Grilli Ranch, Tuscany._ Two hundred kilometers from here.

It would be an enormous risk to leave her hideout. If she was caught, even by just by a regular traffic cop, it could send her right back to the interrogation room, the last place on Earth she wanted to return to.

But she would spend the rest of her life regretting if she did not at least try.

_ Every day. He had called every single day just to know she was alright. _

The thought kept swirling in her head like a leaf in a storm. She took a deep breath, clenched the paper in her hand and mounted the bike, having made her decision.

There had not been much time to memorize the route, but she had a vague idea about which way to go. All she had to do was get going and keep her head cool.

So she left L'Avena in the middle of the night as signorina Giulia slept.

* * *

She drove slowly, using mainly backwater roads where there wasn't a soul to detect her. That had taken most of the night. She had also had to push her bike on foot through some sections where there were residences uncomfortably close to the road. People would certainly remember if they were woken up by a motorcyclist driving through their quiet village in the middle of the night, and she couldn't take that risk.

The highway she only dared to use when other vehicles started emerging early in the morning and she managed to blend in. That final boost allowed her to finally arrive at the break of dawn.

She stopped her bike on the small dirt road leading to the ranch. For a while she just stood there, her clammy hands wound around the handles, her feet unsurely propped against the ground. She stared down at the farmhouse on the horizon through the dark visor of her helmet. She swallowed.

Perhaps it had been a bad idea to come here. Sergio had a system in place, and she had just transgressed against it in a major way. She had managed to make her way safely here, that much he couldn't complain about, but what if this was the wrong place? What if Sergio wasn't here?

In that case, she wasn't sure if she knew how to get back to her hideout, and the risks would have grown tenfold.

Even if she had been right, who was she kidding? He would be furious that she did this. She would be lucky if he could even look her in the eye after he found out she had endangered herself for the third time.

She came to the vague conclusion that she should hide herself and the bike somewhere so that she could think it through before approaching the ranch. But before she could act on this decision, she saw a figure up ahead on the road. It was a man leading a horse

It was too late to retreat now. He must have seen her, and it would be more suspicious than anything she could possibly do if she turned on her heel now and fled. She had no choice but to step on the gas and drive past him in the hope he would not pay any mind to her.

But when the time came to move, she found herself petrified.

The man had moved closer, and she now saw who he was.

For a moment, she could not breathe. She simply watched in frozen terror as Sergio walked towards her.

His head was bent down in deep thought, the leash of the horse-drawn tight around his hand. He had not noticed her yet, but when he did, he would only see a helmeted motorcyclist standing in the middle of the road like an idiot. But despite having all the good reasons in the world to move, she could not.

Sergio then lifted his gaze and she saw his eyes for the first time in weeks, even if only through the dark-tinted glass of her helmet. Her heart convulsed.

Perhaps it was a good thing she had come. At least now she had her chance to make her case. She would force him to hear her out, and even if he turned her away after all that, she at least had tried.

But not a word left her mouth despite her best intentions.

"Hi there," he called out, gazing at her warily. Raquel couldn't blame him. If she was in his position, she would be just as skeptical about any strangers looking out of place.

She did not answer even only to alleviate his suspicions. She simply stood there, rooted to the spot, unable to breathe.

Sergio tilted his head, regarding her the same way one would an animal whose dangerousness one was not sure of.

"Are you lost?"

She still didn't speak, every muscle in her body in lockdown. He most likely thought she was deranged - or worse, a cop.

Whatever he was thinking, his better angels seemed to win against his instincts. He glanced at her, tied the horse's leash to a yardstick, and began tentatively approaching her.

"I don't have a phone with me, but there is a ranch nearby if you need any help. Are you alright?"

The question was the last straw. Tears welled up in her eyes. _ I am not alright _ , she wanted to say.  _ I am not alright because if you knew who I was, you wouldn't be this kind. _

She was faintly aware that she had begun to tremble. She saw him gaze at her, concern marring his features. He took another step closer, but then stopped as if having suddenly been faced with a wall.

He stared at her, but now in a wholly different way than before. It made her feel like someone was shining a light from behind her.

Raquel was just about to mutter some sort of an apology before turning away and disappearing, but she did not get the chance. Before she could do as much as open her mouth to force the first syllables out, he was by her side. Suddenly there were hands around her helmet, forcing it off of her head. Her heart stopped.

A small gasp tumbled out of her mouth, but it was stifled by his lips surging down on hers.

Before the helmet was even fully off, he was kissing her desperately.

The helmet was knocked to the ground. His fingers tangled in her hair at the same time as hers did in his. He was clutching at her like a drowning man clutching a lifeline. He was so furious with his motions she almost fell off her bike, but was snatched by him just in time and lifted against him, even firmer than before. She couldn't have pried herself out of his hands even if she'd wanted to. She had no intention to depart, not even to catch her breath. She would never want to leave his arms again.

He kept kissing her as if afraid he was going to run out of time. She herself was afraid that her heart would burst if her lips left his even for a fraction of a second. There was now wetness on his skin, from her tears or his, she couldn't say. All she knew was that she was happy for the first time since the end of the heist.

Finally, they had to break off to drink in the air. But their foreheads stayed together, both of them unable to move any further off than that. They were not meant to be apart.

His thumb caressed her lower lip like a cherished treasure as she slowly exhaled and inhaled. He then let out the whisper of a question that he had not had the time to ask before jumping her.

"What are you doing here?"

"What do you think?" she answered tearfully.

His response to that was kissing her again, softer this time, but with just enough firmness as if to say she shouldn't have come, but he was glad she had.

"How did you know it was me?" she broke off to ask.

"Hope," he answered honestly, and her heart melted a little at the look in his eyes as he said it. "You found me because of those phone calls, didn't you?"

She let out a small chuckle. "It was very easy. All you were hiding behind was that code language."

"I should have been more careful."

"I tracked you down once before. Why did you think you'd be able to get away this time?"

Sergio smiled, his eyes shrinking into familiar dark creases. God, she had missed that. She had missed him so much it almost hurt to look at him now.

"Aren't you mad I came here?" she had to ask.

"I'm trying my hardest to be, but it is proving difficult now that you are standing in front of me."

She could see he was speaking the truth. There was turmoil just sizzling below the surface, held in check by stronger emotions that having her in his arms again had brought. She kissed his cheek, hoping to help push back his anxieties.

"If it helps, I was extremely careful. I don't think anyone noticed me."

"Good," he said quietly, drawing her in his arms again. They embraced each other quietly, just relishing in each other’s proximity. Then a painful thought occurred to her. What if he had not changed his mind despite being happy see her? Would he still want them to go their separate ways after this?

"What you said about us on the radio-"

"I was wrong, and I am sorry. We don't have to talk about it now. I just need you to know I was wrong."

Raquel deflated in his arms, a huge lump in her chest having been burst like a soap bubble. She squeezed him tighter in his arms, letting out a choked sound.

"Yes, you were," she sniffled.

"I am never letting you go again," he muttered into her hair, and then repeated himself as if once hadn't been enough. "I am never letting you go again."

Her answer to that was kissing him deeply, sealing the promise. Sergio wound his arms around her, lifting her to his lips as if afraid he wouldn't get enough of her if she stayed on the ground. She smiled against his lips, feeling warmth rise within her from his touch.

"Does that mean you are not sending me back?" she asked once they pulled away.

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"I'm staying with you from now on," she said.

It was not phrased like a question. It was a firm statement.

Sergio nodded feverishly, and the next time their mouths collided, there was determination in their kiss that hadn't been there before. There was no desperation or uncertainty. They were kissing each other like reunited lovers.

Raquel slipped a tongue inside his mouth, causing him to let out a low moan. The sound vibrated in her chest, sending a shiver down her spine. What had been warmth in her chest was now quickly turning into heat in her abdomen. It had been far too long, and her need almost surprised her with its intensity.

Sergio was still fully immersed in her kiss, his hands exploring every part as if he had forgotten the feel of her. As much as she loved his touch, she was afraid he was not on the same wavelength as her at the moment.

So she took a step and stayed his shoulders. Sergio lifted his gaze, his eyes dazed.

"Sergio… Is there somewhere you need to be right now?"

"Not really. Why?" he asked breathlessly.

"It's just that…" she bit her lip, hoping that he would catch her meaning. "It's been over  _ two  _ months."

Sergio nodded, understanding immediately. "The ranch is not too far from here. Let's go."

He grabbed her hand and together, they took the first running steps up in the ranch's direction. That was when the horse let out an almost accusative neigh behind them.

Sergio cursed in a low voice. "The horse. I forgot. I have to take it back."

"And we need to hide the bike."

He cursed some more.

In the end, they did manage both of those tasks but it took longer than their patience could have borne. When the motorcycle was finally hidden in some bushes and the horse was back in its stall, they were both near imploding with need and acted accordingly.

Sergio kicked the door of the house he was staying in open and they stumbled inside like a pair of giddy teenagers, unable to keep their hands off each other longer than one second. They crashed against the wall, kissed some more and made very little process on their way to the bedroom.

Just before Sergio seemed about to scoop her up and carry her the rest of the way, the door was slammed open again. They detached from each other, turning to look at the intruder with dazed eyes and kiss-swollen lips.

There was an extremely agitated-looking older gentleman standing on the doorstep.

"Professor! The lady on the phone, she is saying they are completely out of feed! It's gone! Vanished in the night!"

Both of them froze for a moment, not knowing what to say.

"Uh, yes, I know," Sergio finally answered absently. "This is her. This is the feed."

Raquel waved at him awkwardly.

The old gentleman blinked once, then twice. "Oh."

"You should probably go back to the phone and tell signorina Giulia not to worry. Tell her we have the feed."

* * *

Sergio ended up having to explain to Giulia himself that everything was alright and at length, making Raquel regret she had not left a note. If she had, she wouldn't be sitting here in the living room of strangers, her body screaming with impatience to be close to him. If Sergio as much as brushed against her at this moment, she would unravel like a ball of yarn.

When Sergio finally hung up and turned to her with a smile, Raquel leaped up from her seat in anticipation. Before he could take her in his arms again, however, the elderly couple that had been hiding Sergio these past two months materialized in the room.

"You must have had a long night,  _ cara _ . Would you like us to fix you some breakfast?"

It took every ounce of her willpower to keep smiling. "That is so kind of you to offer, but I am not hungry."

That was when her stomach decided to betray her by letting out a loud growl.

All further protests went to deaf ears. Both of them were seated at the table, absolutely everything Italy seemed to offer piled in front of them one dish at a time. It was useless to claim to be full. The elderly woman just said 'nonsense' and set a new plate in front of her.

At least she was not alone in her misery. Sergio next to her looked like he was slowly going through all circles of hell one by one. Raquel had a suspicion that he was going to break the fork in his hand if he squeezed it any tighter.

They resorted to holding hands under the table, but it was a painfully insufficient replacement of how she wanted to be touched. Just his scent and proximity were making her dizzy.

The older man had now started a story that seemed to have three acts and an intermission. His wife was smiling and nodding next to him and asking further questions despite probably having heard this story thousands of times before. The corner of Raquel's mouth started to twitch.

_ These are good, lovely people who had given Sergio food and shelter for months _ , she kept telling herself.  _ They needed to be treated with kindness and respect, no matter how horny you are. _

Raquel listened to the story all the way to the end in what had to be the greatest accomplishment in her life. Of course, the details had not exactly stuck to her mind and she would definitely fail any quiz suddenly given about contents of the tale, but in her defense, Sergio had rested his hand on her thigh for the last half an hour and it would have demanded more strength than she had in her entire being to be able to focus on anything else but that fact.

Then the woman started talking about the weather they had been having, and Raquel and Sergio exchanged looks.

_ I don't know how much longer I can take this _ , she communicated with her eyes.

_ I've got this _ , Sergio answered.

"Signora Alessa, as much as we would love to keep chatting, the fact is that I haven't seen my wife in a very long time..."

"Say no more. We will give you some privacy," Alessa said, smiling knowingly. Raquel would have been mildly mortified by this if she wasn't still frozen in shock by what Sergio had just said.

_ My wife. _

Sergio gave her a relieved, if a little embarrassed smile. "Thank you, my wife and I would appreciate that."

There it was again

Raquel thought she should probably say something about it, but that intention was quickly wiped off her mind as she watched the elderly couple leave.

They were finally alone.

Raquel stood up, not knowing what else to do. Sergio followed her suit.

It only took one look, one dark look from Sergio and she cracked.

He turned to her at the same time as she turned to him, and within just a fraction of a second, she was up in his arms, her legs wound around his body, his arms anchoring her firmly against his chest. Their lips were already fused. They were kissing as desperately as a parched man drank from a bubbling spring, and the taste of each other felt just as headily relieving. Raquel felt like she had not been touched by Sergio in decades, despite their last kiss being just a few hours prior.

But that did not count. Only kisses with as little clothing between their skin as possible counted from now on. Raquel started furiously tugging at his shirt front, fumbling for his buttons. At the same time, Sergio determinedly backed her up against the wall, his hands roaming from her ass to her shoulders and back to her ass.

After he had crashed her against the nearest wall and started working the zipper of her pants open, Raquel broke away for air, her thoughts clearing.

"Sergio… We cannot do this here."

Sergio looked at her, his gaze dazed as if she was speaking a foreign language. She couldn't blame him, she was so delirious with lust herself she wouldn't have comprehended anything other than 'fuck me right here and now' either.

"There are paintings on this wall. You remember what happened in Palawan, don't you?"

"I never liked those paintings anyway," Sergio panted, his lips chasing her jawline.

"But it was a nightmare to clean. We need to take this somewhere else. It is the least…" A kiss. "We can do…" Another kiss. "To these good people."

After they finally broke away from the third kiss, Sergio grudgingly agreed with a nod. "What is the nearest paintingless surface?"

"No, take me to your bed. I need to ride you."

"Raquel, carrying you upstairs is where the very last vestiges of my self-control will be expended. After that, I am either going to be inside you as fast as humanly possible or I am going to black out. There is no middle option where I'll be able to wait for you to climb on top of me."

Raquel murmured an affirmative, not having the presence of mind to even voice her agreement. Instead, she crashed her mouth on his again, almost making him lose his balance. As his response, he sucked on her lower lip, wrenching one last delicious moan from her throat before scooping her up in his arms and carrying her upstairs with the haste of a man saving a woman from a burning building.

His mouth was clamped hotly over hers before they had managed to even get fully through the door. The rest of the way they staggered blindly in, Sergio already feverishly yanking at her blouse like he had a personal vendetta against the garment. Shoes were kicked off and pants ripped down. Her bra was torn off with enough violence to make it unusable in the future but Raquel hardly minded. She herself was in the process of destroying Sergio's shirt. She was stopped short, however, as Sergio pushed her on the bed, settled on top of her and took her breast in his mouth.

Just like that, she was lost to the world.

The faint scrape of his beard only heightened the sensation. Raquel thought she might just come from his lips around her nipple. But that was before she felt his iron-hard cock push against her folds, and she decided nothing she had ever felt in her life could come close to this.

Sergio absentmindedly swept his finger down to see if she was wet enough, and the gesture almost made her laugh out loud. She had spent the last few hours with soaked underwear. Instead of pointing this out to him, she arched her back and begged.

"Please, Sergio, please-"

Before the words had even tumbled completely out of her mouth, he had pushed all the way inside her. A stunned cry escaped from the very heart of her.

The relief of having all of him inside her again was suddenly almost too much to bear. Her fingers carved deep into his back. He pulled an inch or two out, and thrust back in, causing her to let out an even louder, filthier moan.

Sergio had not been lying about his hunger for her. The pace at which he was pushing into her was brutal in mere seconds. The bedframe started rocking against the wall in a dangerous manner, but Raquel spared it only a half-hearted notion. The capability of all coherent thought was robbed from her every time Sergio buried himself up to the hilt in her. All she was able to do was gasp and buck against him in a desperate pursuit of release that was already making her vision blur around the edges.

She came first and so suddenly she did not realize it until her body was already turned into hot liquid, white nothingness all around her. Sergio followed soon after, the gripping sensation of her climax pushing him over the edge. He spilled inside her and groaned with deep, guttural relief.

They both laughed a little as they fell forward in a sticky heap, pressing frenzied kisses on each other's damp skin.

The whole thing had been over in less than five minutes, but Raquel did not have a word of complaint. There could be nothing more perfectly, beautifully right than this moment.

* * *

A few long, exhausting hours later Raquel lay collapsed on Sergio's chest, panting, completely drained of her strength. Her limbs were tangled with his, her body safe and comfortable in the cradle of his arms. He was still inside her after their last bout of lovemaking mere minutes ago, slowly softening but in no rush to draw himself out. They were content to just lay there, letting the sweat dry off their skin.

She had her eyes closed, taking in slow and shuddery breaths of air as she listened to Sergio's heart that was still beating frantically. A smile flickered across her features. There was no sweeter sound in the world than the life in her lover's veins.

Raquel let out a content sigh, letting her fingers lazily traipse across his beautiful abdomen all the way to the dusting of dark hair on his chest. She was breathless and drained but she couldn't help but marvel at his beauty. How had she gotten so lucky?

Sergio had yet to open his own eyes, still too exhausted to speak, but he answered Raquel's ministrations by shifting his head an inch and dropping a drowsy kiss on her hair.

Her heart swelled in her chest and she felt the sudden urge to kiss him again. But she better not start anything so soon again, it might just cause his whole system to shut down and she'd like to keep this man for at least a couple of decades more.

That reminded her of something. She let out an impish grin to herself as she recalled Sergio's little white lie at the breakfast table. Or was it just a slip of the tongue? She did not know, but she was eager to find out.

She chuckled out loud.

"What?" he murmured.

"Just a funny thing I remembered."

Sergio let out a hum that could be translated into 'tell me’ as his fingers languidly played with her hair. Raquel shifted so that she was looking up at him with her hand supporting her head like a curious child.

"You called me your wife back there."

Sergio lifted one eyelid, peering at her inquiringly.

"Did I?"

Interestingly enough, he did not seem flustered at all. Raquel had expected the very opposite, considering how he had reacted in a similar instance before. One time when they had been strolling down the beach in Palawan Sergio had suddenly gotten down on his knee in front of her to tie his shoelaces. The tourists around them had let out gasps of wonder and excitement, obviously misunderstanding the situation. The poor man had flushed as pink as a watermelon. For a moment, he had looked as if he was seriously considering going with it in order to spare them both the embarrassment. Raquel had stopped him before he could do such a thing and later on at their house they had laughed about it, though Sergio had still spent the evening in various stages of mortification.

But this was not the same Sergio. Instead of balking, he simply gazed up at her with an unreadable expression, waiting for her answer.

"You did. I did not say anything because I thought it was adorable. Some guys slip up and accidentally call their wives or fiancees their girlfriends and get smacked for it, but here you are, bungling your words in the very opposite way. What am I to do with you, huh? Is there an appropriate reaction to this one?"

Sergio's only answer to that was to smile languidly at her.

"Sorry. It's a force of habit," he said, not looking sorry at all.

"Force of habit?"

Something in his expression changed. It was as if the last knot of tension in his body had just been unraveled, and a flush of something akin to relief or resolve had consumed him.

"Raquel," he began, in the voice he used whenever he was telling her something new and of the utmost importance. "In my mind, you have been my wife for a good while now."

"Oh."

It was the only answer she could possibly muster at the face of such a revelation.

"Though I do realize I cannot keep calling you that," Sergio said, propping himself so that he was face to face with her.

An unexplainable sliver of disappointment passed through her. Ignoring it, she began to nod but was cut off by Sergio.

"I… I need to hear something from you first."

He took her hands gently in his. Instantaneously, the atmosphere in the room shifted and Raquel felt like somebody had dropped a pile of bricks on her chest.

The light flicker of mischief in Sergio's eyes had been replaced by the deepest, most earnest emotion. He wetted his lip, then closed his mouth, nervous but hopeful. She knew what it meant. She had seen this expression on a man's face before, the last time being the time he had told her about Plan Paris.

This was it.

"Raquel, mi alma…"

A small, rather pathetic noise escaped her. A second, identical one followed soon after despite her efforts to stifle it.

_ No, not now. _

This was one of the few times a woman should keep her composure, if only for the sake of her own pride.

She tried her hardest not to let it out, but all in vain. Like a dam breaking, everything she had kept in since the job, all that anxiety and heartache and misery, burst free and rushed through her in a tsunami of emotions. The first tear ran down her cheek, then the second, then the third.

Sergio was not fazed by any of this. He simply wiped off the wetness from her skin with the pad of his thumb and then he tried again with the softest of voices.

"Raquel, will you-"

"Don't," she warned, though the authority of her voice was greatly diminished by the choked quality of it. "Don't do this now. It is not fair. I have spent the entirety of last night driving and the last two months doing manual labor from dawn to dusk, not to mention what we have gotten up to these last few hours. I barely have enough energy to hold my head up. Every inch of me is physically and mentally exhausted. I cannot be cool about this right now. I just can't."

She topped it all off by bursting into fervent, hiccuping tears.

Sergio's answer to that was a gentle smile. Only then she noticed his hands were trembling, suggesting that he had not entirely been able to keep his cool either.

He kissed her tear-dappled cheeks over and over again until her sobs quieted enough not to drown out his voice anymore.

"Raquel…" he began for the third time.

There was no end to her tears. All she could do was hiccup through them.

"Will you marry me?"

She let out a long, shuddery sob as her heart unwound after being firmly coiled in her chest for the longest time.

"Bastard, why did you not do this months ago?" she sniffled out.

When she did not say anything else and just kept on crying, he frowned a little. There was a hint of worry in his eyes.

Her darling idiot. He was the only man in the world who could doubt her answer even after an all-day sex marathon, not to mention the year and a half spent in a committed relationship with each other.

She pressed her lips against his, kissing him deeply and earnestly with her arms around him. She sensed Sergio melt against her. That hopefully evaporated the last traces of doubt in his mind.

After rendering each other breathless and dizzy, he withdrew, his gaze dazed.

"Is that a-"

"Yes," she said, her voice bubbling with laughter. His face then went so soft, so relieved and full of joy that Raquel's heart was simultaneously torn apart and made whole. She kissed him again, and this time he answered with fervor, deepening the kiss almost instantly and clutching at her as if afraid she was going to take it back if he did not hold her tight enough.

The back of her head hit the pillow and he settled on top of her, the position giving him a significant advantage in his current endeavor.

But just when the kiss was heading to a delicious direction, Sergio broke off suddenly.

"I don't have a ring," he said regretfully as if the fact that he had not slipped some rock on her finger yet was what made or broke the whole thing. She suppressed a fond sigh.

"It's okay," she smiled, trying to draw him back into her arms. But he wouldn't budge.

"I have bought one… but is back in Palawan, buried under some rocks," he shook his head, frustrated. "I am an idiot."

Raquel decided not to question why Sergio would have bought a ring only to bury it under some rocks in Palawan and adopted the most reassuring look on her face instead.

"As I said, it's okay. Me not having a ring does not mean we are any less engaged," she comforted.

_ Engaged _ . She started grinning again as she thought about it. That sweet idiot had certainly taken his time.

Sergio started smiling as well after having been infected by her. But there was still a hidden frown playing at the corner of his lips, bugging him for one reason or another.

"No, it's not okay. I need to give you  _ something _ . Otherwise, this will just be like any other night."

Raquel quirked an eyebrow. "Any other night? Sergio,  _ mi amor _ , I would strongly argue against that."

Gaining some self-awareness, Sergio flashed her a dopey smile. "I know, I know. But just humor me."

"Alright," Raquel sighed and let Sergio settle in front of her, looking just as excited as a man about to slip a ring onto her finger. The smile quickly faded away, however.

"Oh, I just remembered," he exhaled. "I wanted to give you this special origami but all my supplies… Well, they got ruined when my suitcase fell into the river on the way here."

"Oh cariño, that's alright. You can just tell me what you were going to give me."

"No, it's not the same. It's a complicated piece, the work is half the gift."

"Then just make it for me."

Sergio looked almost offended at the suggestion. "I told you, the paper is wet and ruined. There is no way I am giving my future wife a soggy origami."

Raquel laughed. "No, I meant that you could  _ just  _ make it for me. It doesn't matter if you have paper or not."

"Oh."

Sergio hesitated for a moment. Then finally, he set his hands between their bodies, just above her chest and began a sequence of delicate ministrations in the air. Raquel felt a smile flicker over her features as she observed him move his fingers, a concentrated crease on his forehead. She loved that he was creating it over her heart without probably even realizing and she loved that he was clearly not missing a single step. She loved him so much.

After some time, Sergio seemed to finish. He had cradled his hands above her heart like he was holding something tangible. Raquel resisted the urge to kiss him silly for being so wonderful and gave him the most brilliant smile instead.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It is a carnation. You once told me they are your favorite flower because they remind you of home. Home in Spain."

Her heart convulsed. "Oh Sergio…"

"I know they don't grow where we will live and I know I cannot give you a way we could return to Spain ever again. But I was hoping I could give you something to make up for it. The carnations I can give you are made of paper, or in this case, not even of that but I promise that I am going to spend the rest of my life creating a home for our family that you could love just as much."

Every word from his mouth touched her heart in a way she had not thought was possible. And she thought she had been emotional before. Raquel had to act quickly before she teared up again so she pulled Sergio into a sweet kiss.

"Yes, yes, yes," she said, kissing him again and again, holding him like he was a dream she did not want slipping from her fingers. "I will marry you."

"I thought you already agreed," he chuckled breathlessly.

"Now more than ever."

"Say it one more time then, for good measure."

She smiled teasingly.

"I will be your wife."

" _ Again _ ."

There was now a hint of a darker quality to his voice, and a special glint in his eye. He had very much liked what he had just heard.

"I will be  _ your wife, _ " she murmured and relished in the way the look in Sergio's eyes further shifted. He grabbed her waist, causing a shiver to run through her.

"Again," he pleaded.

So she said it again as she climbed in his lap and gave him just what he wanted.

Later on, they did it again. And after that, once more

Because they finally could.


End file.
